Random Ramblings

Has there been some thing that you are worried about lately, something that might not seem too important that has been troubling you? ... Or that the very thought of it makes you shiver, tremble with fear or puts in the fear of god within you? Well ... I am facing one such thing of late. Somehow I have developed a fear of the fans, especially in cases where fans are a relatively lesser height, usually which I can touch easily with my palms or even elbows ... and even the ones that I can barely even touch by my fingers. This has not been without a reaon though. Recently I went to a relatives place where there was this combination of a fan being at lesser height and me being quite tall. After taking a bath (yeah ... I do take a bath ... in summers at least!) I switched on the fan, and raised my hands to wear a T-shirt. And suddenly I found something hitting my left thumb, hitting it really hard. Before the signal was sent to my brain so that I could realize what was happening, I put my h...

Often, I have seen and observed human beings who think in similar way, who act in similar way given a similar situation situation. They have similar values and beliefs, and deviations adherence to these norms or questioning them seems unthinkable. It is as if giving 10 such people same set of stimulus and getting exactly the same output from all 10 of them. Not only it does exist ... it is often actually encouraged, and at times forced upon. For instance I have seen kids who are forced to become right handed just because it seems odd to be a left handed in a world full of right handed people. Even if this means labored eating and writing using by using right hand. Or almost every other unsuspecting 2-year old kid expected to recite millions of things millions of times before the guests. Often you are expected, and at times forced to have same set of interests so that you fit into the society. For instance you must like similar hindi film music, you must like and appreciate dance and...

(Following is based upon a real discussion which I had today morning) As I was making efforts to keep myself afloat in the swimming pool, I overheard some conversations - "Puraa paper pataa hota hai, wo to humein mil hi jaata hai ... tab bhi hum nahi padhte hain" . .. and so on The guy who did bulk of talking looked around 15 years old and seemed like quite a spoilt brat. I chipped in with some expert comments and questions - "Which board?" "Kisi bhi board ka" After a minute of chat I gathered that he had just given Class 10 exams in ICSE board and was planning to take science stream(PCM), and he studied in a school (say SKP). He had earlier managed to do the same at his previous school (say CRK). Inquisitively, I tried to gather more information on how he manages to get the paper "Bus kuch nahi, security guard ko paise do. 8th, 10th, 12th ke papers. Wo ek extra copy karaa leta hai. ICSE ke paper out karna sabse easy hai. Koi seal nahi hoti" ...

The Honda City brushed the vegetable laden cart, which was standing on side of a somewhat busy road. Down he got from the car, removed his goggles, headed towards the seemingly malnourished vendor and grabbed him by his collar. "Saale, tu khud ko samajhta kya hai. Sadak kya tere baap ki hai" "Saab, meri koi galti nahi ... Wo to aapki gaddi ..." "Saale, zabaan ladaata hai ... Teri to ..." Raaapppppppppppatttttt >--Slap No. # 1-- "Saab, lekin ..." Satttttttttttttttakkkkkkkk >--Slap No. # 2-- "Saab ..." "Aur aukaad mein reh ..." He grabbed the vendor by his collar, blurted out some words of which only the abuses were clearly audible and went back to his car to join his group of relatives, who were waiting for him to go for a shopping spree, all in awe of the command and control he had over the people.

(Disclaimer - Please do not think that I don't know spellings ... my numerologist told to use the above spelling for eediyot and add a k before it, this will help generate more TRP and comments for the blog) Time 7 : 30 - 8 PM, 8 - 8 : 30 PM .... 10 : 30 - 11 PM Venue - Zee TV, Star Plus, Sony entertainment etc. etc. Figure this - A family drawing room belonging to an extremely rich business house occupied with a mixture of emotional and scheming characters - 1 saas, 2 bahus, 1 son (+1 who makes an entry unaware of what is happening), 2 random distant relatives, 3 random cousins, all mouthing dialogues that have earlier been said by actors ranging from Nirupa Roy to Rajesh Khanna, followed by a long silence, 13 camera angles for same scene (top view, side view, cross sectional view, lateral view, 45 degree elevation view) , flashbacks and memories that last few episodes, good people becoming evil, evil people actually being un-evil, rebirths, amnesia, a background score that often ...

Everyone has some idiosyncrasies when it comes to watching a movie. I tried to list some of mine in this post -- Some random movie watching habits, that belong exclusively to me (Idea for this write up has been blatantly stolen from other blogs!) --> There are few movies I get extremely excited about (e.g. TZP, Jodha Akbar, RDB), and there have been few I have always been excited about ever since I saw them ... and people have been bored of hearing me recommend that movie to others (e.g. TZP, RDB, The Truman show, Forrest Gump, ... even Aaap ka surror!) While watching movies (esp. angrezi ones!) on my lappy, I often use Wikipedia and IMDB as reference (esp. to know where the story is headed for) ... Even with such references, I could understand only half the movie Memento! I love reading movie reviews. Few of the ones I follow are Taran Adarsh ke crappy reviews, Rajeev Masand (who is somewhat reliable) ... and few reviews occasionally in TOI, HT, Rediff, and other random websites. ...