My Retrospect

My Retrospect

The first time I saw him; believe me I was in awe. The very first thought that occurred to my mind was “Is he a real or a fictional character”.

Average heighted, approximately of my height, but he had plump bums and had busts too; trust me he had those. He was one of those whom I consider to be the most ill stylish. His hair had a unique trait; it was not because of the style which he had, but it was due to his reasoning. He was a perfect geek or better word, a nerd and an add-on of zero dressing sense and yet he was damn confident when it comes about girls. He thought he was Casanova, and the only wish I had that he never asked me for my feedback. I never thought, neither I dreamed that I will be in touch with him, that too almost after a decade. With a limited coterie, he is one of them; and he remains very special and very dear to me.

This guy had an amazing charisma; people usually claim that if one can conjure, then he can procure your mind space, which means a lot, and this is always considered in terms of positive trait (being benign); however I had a different opinion, you need not to be an epitome of morality of altruism, all u need to know is one basic rule, how to get attention; no matter you irk your associates. A person who is coercing in nature can procure our mind space, and yet he will be called as charismatic fellow.In the beginning I was quite apprehensive towards our friendship, for me he was an alien, he use to talk about books (Irido, Rudiments of physics, H C Verma and his favorite Resnick Halliday), some educational magazine (Brilliant Tutorials…..etc); he had an unique obsession, he uses to go ga ga for any educational research stuff, as if it was done by him; his prime objective was to argue and make people eulogize his credentials.

On the contrary, i was a kind of bloke who was more into philandering activities, even I read magazines, but they were more pictorial oriented. I only believed in acquiring specific knowledge, knowledge of real time experiences. Still I believe that I always hated to hate what I really hated about that guy.

For those two years, probably slightly more than that, he shocked me with his gratuitous actions, which actually turned into a disaster. I think he was probably a very simple guy and it was me who made him complicated; this could be because of my non acquaintance with mediocre human beings, as of now I can’t frame any better excuse so let it be.Actually we were never of the greatest buddies, and when it was regarding close associates, we had different realm. Sometimes life actually plays around, we became good friends when we were done with our higher secondary education (XI & XII), that’s astonishing but it is a fact.

I learnt what I call my real time lessons from such a guy who considered himself as a case study and he actually explored human traits by experimenting with his life; I can’t call him as an imbecile specimen, neither a genius, he was a fucking moron. He took that risk and he bet his dick for that, he could have lost his testicles or would have been perished but he survived and that too proudly.People becomes engineer or doctors, some take advance courses and then they do some fucking research, we call them hero’s; people claim them wonders and sometimes associate them with a tag, GENIEUS; but what about those who actually master their life and makes it to succumb. I don’t have any word to define them, or more precisely no one should try that, this could be the probable reason that I am his friend, as of now it suits the most.

P.S This article is an exaggeration of human characters. I was never the way I have portrayed myself and more over he was not exactly the way I put him, he was worse than that (kidding). All the time I tried to criticize my own beliefs. It was more like writing about what I wanted to become.

P.S.S We make our choices for making friends on the basis of semblance, we discard people when we can’t become like them; most of the time we hate someone because we can’t accept someone who lives life the way he wants to and doesn’t pretends and seldom we accept our baseless hatred.

P.S.S.S After so many years, I realized, that for no reasons he disliked me or vice versa; but now I can see what I was not able to foresee when I was with him, that those were the trifle issues and we overlook the other major issues.

What is wrong with Bollywood?-Part 1

What is wrong with Bollywood?

This is the question which indeed has become question for our contemporary cinema. In the past two decades, i have been grown up watching Chopra’s, Barjatya’s, Johars, Roshan’s….etc and there is one common characteristic which binds them; they are all same.

There is another type of cinema, parallel cinema, cinema which has Hrishekesh Mukherjee’s simplicity and Shaym Benegal’s style of story telling; cinema which is more of abstract and hence is tabooed; at its fore front, we have RGV and his one time assistant Madhur Bhandarkar; Amit Shamin, Mani Ratnam, Anurag Kashayp …etc too belongs to the same league.

I can’t fathom how our choices have deteriorated so much; we are living in a constant façade that we are making a choice for watching a quality cinema, and on top of that this graph is ascending and linear. Out of TEN Bollywood movies, NINE are influenced from foreign films; out of NINE, barely one or two follow the suit and tag of being Influential, like Sarkar was loosely influenced from God Father Trilogy; but what about remaining seven?

Out of SEVEN, FIVE copies the theme and add their own stuff, Nishabd had the same theme as that of Lolita but was dealt in a different way; even this is acceptable if the output is not a crap unlike Deewane Hue Paagal, which was the disastrous version of Something About Mary and Yeh Kya Ho Raha Hai, an irritable version of American Pie-I.

Out of these FIVE, TWO follows Copy-Paste technique. The technique is very simple and even a dud can practice it, use a writer who knows English and then translate all the subtitles into Hindi, Zinda, Frame by Frame copy of Old Boy and Murder, which is a Scene by Scene copy of Unfaithful; and the KING of Copy-Paste technique is the man with the multiple Bio-Pics; Zakhm, Kaash, Aarth, Woh Lamhe …….etc are few of those; and he is none other than Mr Mahesh Bhat; you name it and he has it.

I have no intention of writing about remakes; however I have one doubt; are we really incapable of making some descent cinema? I have made a sincere attempt to understand the psychology of our craftsmen ship, the so called Directors; who are losing their sensibility about Film Making and soon will be bereft. One who tops the charts is Satish kaushakh, director of Tere Naam. One question which baffles me is; why the hell he remade Karz with some extra zzzzzz’s and that too with H.R, and my next question is for a well renowned Director-producer Vipul Shah; I just want one answer, one justification, one simple reason about what he liked most about such an imbecile stuff like Singh is Kingg; was this a real Master piece as per him; why he became the producer of such a movie?

There is huge list of questions, especially for Johar’s and Chopra’s and I can’t write those right now. From all these unanswered question I have realized one fact, if Aap ka Saaroor can become an Instant hit and Movies like Welcome, Singh is King and Kambakth Ishq can rule the box office then why I should not I remake Karz with HR and try my hands on CC2C.
It’s not the Film Maker who should be considered responsible for bad cinema; it’s the audience who appreciates such movies and is the real culprit for such disastrous cinema. Bad cinema does not mean a Copied movie, to qualify for bad cinema the only parameter is the lack of conviction. Maan Gaye Mughle-Azam, one of the worst torture; I have ever been through was actually the copied version of classic, Black & White English movie, so just copying is not the holy grail.
We have been copying movies since we had accessibility to their cinema, I remember Nargis Dutt’s Raat Aur Din was first hindi Sci-Fic; where the protagonist has a Multiple Personality Disorder, this movie was copied from 1960’s Alfer Hatchcock’s Psycho. As I said I don’t have intention of criticizing this habit but my clear intention is to focus on the sensibility of the audience.

I believe that audience in 1970’s been much more mature and had a far better taste than the audience of this millennium. There was a time when Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, Goolmal, Chupke Chupke, Bawarchi… etc were considered as descent comic capers and Silsala, kabhie Kabhie, Pyaasa, kaagaz ke phool set the rules for romantic films and finally there were thrillers like DON, Deewar, Kaala Pathar, Kalicharan, Chinatown, Shaan which elevated the standards of Hindi film Industry. Now time has changed, these days movies like Phir Hera Pheri, Goolmal Returns, AapkaSaroor, Jawani Deewani, Kamabkth Ishq, welcome, Partner, Aapna Sapna Money Money ……. … etc tickles our funny bone.

This revelation occurred when I saw Vivek Agnihotri’s Chocolate and i liked it as it was bit different from others; chocolate, a copy of Usual Suspect except some non sense song sequence. To my surprise, this movie was a flop and audience find its story (writing & Screenplay) quite arduous ; well I guess there is only one reason for its failure; director forgot something, something which cost him too much, he forgot about the audience, he forgot that we are Indians and we only understand the language of Chopra’s and Johars. We can only appreciate Sharukh’s Sobbing and Aamir’s yet to discover ACTING. No offense for SRK and AK’s fan, I do remember Chak de, Swades and Sarfarosh but I am going with the majority.

To describe Aamir Khan i think Ghajjni is enough, Ghajjni, a real dud , a perfect shame and the best spoof of Christopers Nolan’s Memento till date and for such an audacious attempt, Murgadose the director and Aamir Actor cum Director should be rewarded with some SPECIAL AWARD; as he says Every Director is special – Tare zameen Pe.

It’s not about being a flop or Box Office disaster, movies like No Smoking, Nishabd, Katha, Suraj Ka Satwan Goda, Mammo, Nishant, English August …….. Were never intended for any commercial success, indeed they needed some appreciation.

Throughout the thread I was quite pensive, for me these film makers are just like jezebel, who contemplates accordingly. If cinema has to evolve then it’s the audience who has to evolve first; same is the case with System or for that matter our Country.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence - Albert Einstein

Search Engines

So at last I wrote something; something which i wanted for last one year but unfortunately was not able to, since, I couldn’t make out what should i write. In my first blog I tried to make it as short as possible and most important; generic. The easiest thing to write would be probably, a contemporary topic, something which is routine based and of course my favorite; controversial, so i wrote this blog. I have shared my point and it’s just my own view.
All these years I have used Google as my default search engine and Googling as my default habit or passion. I feel so dependent on these search sites that i can’t even imagine a world without them. I was in grade 10th when I first saw the Google homepage; I was there in one of the most reputed Cyber café of Jammu city and there was a Sikh guy; who was the proprietor of that CC. It was this Sikh guy who lightened me with the concept of search engines; a blessing in disguise!
Life was simple and so was the usage of these complicated technologies. It was the time when Google was privately owned Inc and had no sponsor’s advertisement with their search result. I use to search sites on Google for heck of using it. It was later around 2005 when I actually felt the need of a search engines, and it was then when I realized the real power of Internet and the concept Search engine.
For last four years; I am using Google without even realizing that it has become a kind of interface between me and my search results, as soon as I am getting results I am happy, who cares about web history and other minute details. I used it without even bothering whether these results were valid, authenticated or were in the right order, I never thought whether these results were swayed be GOOGLE BOMB or some LINK FARMS; for me it never made an impression whether page rank is based on content of the site or its depends upon the link made to that website and I never attempted whether these results had been doctored or manipulated by some SEO or its really real? Honestly i never cared, I never bother myself to see whether search results were in yellow or they were in white.
The main reason about my ignorance was the lack of alternatives and my age old dependency for Google, there was Ask.com, AltaVista, yahoo search, and of course Live.com but the most appropriate result was with Google so as long I was getting results, there was no point of switching loyalties.
Almost a year ago I was able to fathom the concept of sponsored ads; and I was lurched when I realized how Google generate their revenue. If I open my emails, I get to see some sponsored ads on the right hand side of my screen, which I use to ignore previously and most of the times its Naukri.com or Monster.com. Most of times these ads are relevant; they have relation with the content of my mail. For me, it’s someone reading my mails and posting these ads there. In short Google is a panacea but at the same time it jeopardizes my privacy.

Every story has two aspects; one the better one which every one of us appreciates and then there is a darker side which we sometimes overlook. In case of Google, we have simply overlooked the darker side.

- Don’t be evil.
Reference
· Search engines
· Page ranking
· Web crawler
· Yahoo guidelines
· Google guidelines