Of moms and other mindblowing creatures

The other day, during a conversation with one of my friends, he wondered how I could be both romantic and cynical at the same time! Romantic becasue I don't think I can marry without love. I think it is extremely essential to have love in any marriage. And cynical because I don't really think "true love" exists between a man and a woman. If it did, then people would not be cheating on their partners (who they claim to be madly in love with & even go on to marry in many cases) all the time.

I am riding no high horse of morality here. My point is that finding out that your partner has been cheating on you can be extremely hurtful, and if you're willing to risk hurting your partner, where is the true love that you've been talking about? I think a man and a woman can love each other alot but they can only love each other so much. The only "true love" that exists in this world is the love of parents for their children. More precisely, the love of a mother for her child. Moms will always look out for you. They will always put you before themselves. With moms, it's always about you. It's never about them. And that, for me, is true love - selfless, unconditional, boundless & completely giving.

And I do not need a Mother's Day to say this...Love you, Mom!

Festival of lights

Diwali is right around the corner but the excitement isn't palpable like it is every year. I've been trying to get myself in the festive mood by dressing up to work in bright traditional wear for the past two days, but it's difficult to get excited about something when people around you aren't.

There are no decorations on the streets, no bright colored kandeels (paper lanterns) hanging from the windows of peoples' homes, and no celebrations. People are working like it's the busiest time of year (whereas the opposite is true of the Diwali season). They're walking around the streets like there's no reason to rejoice. The happiness and bonhomie that generally accompany Diwali is completely missing! All I see around is indifferent faces.

I wonder what the reason for this is? Is it that we are getting so pulled down by the ever-growing demands of our lives that we have no time to even feel happy? Is living in this big bustling metropolis of ours that we lovingly call aamchi Mumbai actually draining us of all energy and joy?

Many people do not celebrate Diwali because they wish not to burn crackers. But crackers isn't all there is to Diwali! Isn't Diwali also about lighting up our homes, spending time with the people we love, celebrating the good things we have in our lives & being grateful for them, and spreading warmth & happiness? In fact, I believe Diwali is mainly about these things and more!
We don't need crackers to feel happy.

I hope we don't let the spirit of Diwali die. I hope we don't let happiness leave us for good...because there is no other way to live than to be happy. Happy Diwali!!

The anatomy of a show

There are quite a few things I want to write about today...women's moodswings (believe me they are terrible), Sunday evening blues (Oh God!) etc. but I'd rather not start my Monday morning on a depressing note. Mondays are the toughest days of the week to get through as it is. So, I'll start my week writing about something happy and droolworthy such as the men in Grey's Anatomy.

For the uninitiated, Grey's Anatomy is a medical drama that's in its fourth season in the United States and only two seasons have been aired in India so far (which by the way, is sheer injustice in itself). Apart from a fabulous medical background, it's got lots of emotions, drama, humor, romance, friendship, betrayal, sarcasm etc. But the best thing that it's got are the hot McDelicious men!! McLickable, McYumm, McGorgeous...whatever you wanna call them.

So there's McDreamy. Oh, there's McDreamy! And McDreamy he is (http://images.tabulas.com/6504/m/patrick_dempsey_98.jpg).

He's also known as Patrick Dempsey among people who watch him for his acting ability and not for his droolworthy looks alone. He's always got that dreamy, far-away look in his eyes. Especially when he looks at Meredith Grey. So I don't quite blame Meredith for not being able to break away from him even though he is married. Nope, I don't blame her at all! I don't know why I didn't know he existed before I started watching Grey's Anatomy. Anyway, now I know there's a man called Dr McDreamy and it's all good :)

Then there's McSteamy. Or Dr Mark Sloan. The man who slept with McDreamy's McHot wife Dr Addison Montgomery-Shephard. Not fair...McHot wife gets to sleep with McDreamy AND McSteamy. Like...McHumpff!!

This guy, who's also known as Eric Dane (http://www.greysanatomy.eu/Characters_files/76304.png) is straight out of Greek mythology. The chiselled cheekbones, sharp nose, green eyes kinds. I can totally imagine him in a war movie like Gladiator or 300 or Troy. And that would also mean getting a liberal dose of McSteamy in McLittle clothes, so no woman will have any reason to complain! :)

Then there's Dr Burke. Dr Preston Burke. He's sharp, focused, no-nonsense and the best cardio-thoracic surgeon in the country (well, according to the show at least), which makes him a very eligible man for any woman. He's a little obsessed with cleanliness and orderliness but he's allowed that one idiosyncracy for being such a desirable man.

So many hot men in a single show....sigh! Can the producers of the show please also add a disclaimer before the start of the show that says "The men being depicted in this show are purely fictional and ideal. They bear no resemblance to the men you see around you. Such men do NOT exist in real life, so please do NOT expect your McBoyfriend or McHusband to be anything like them".

Nancy Drew is coming to town!

While I was flipping through TV channels yesterday, I stumbled upon one of the Hindi channels that was airing a special program on the Shahid-Kareena break-up! Imagine...a half-hour special on a break-up! They kept showing images of Saif Ali Khan & Kareena Kapoor at the Lakme Fashion Week over and over again, and kept speculating over how shattered Shahid Kappor must be.

Honestly, I feel terrible for these people. The media is a vulture waiting to pounce on them. They scrutinize every bit of their private lives. I am sure Shahid Kapoor must be feeling crappy enough already. The last thing you want to see is people pitying you on national TV!

Disgusted, I switched channels and landed upon another news channel celebrating Ms Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's birthday. And how exactly were they celebrating it? By doing a program called 'Neither Salman's, Nor Vivek's...she's Abhishek's'! How retarded can we get??!!!

I'm not a big fan of the lady for myriad reasons but it's not fair to keep associating her name with Salman Khan & Vivek Oberoi all her life! Her identity does not stem from the fact that she dated the two of them at one point of time. Neither is her identity linked to that of Abhishek Bachchan. And I completely don't understand what who she dated and who she got married to has anything to do with her birthday!

But...there ARE some good things happening on the silver screen. Nancy Drew is all set to make her movie debut! I've been a big fan of Nancy Drew since I was a teenager. I've grown out of the Nancy Drew series now but as a teenager, I used to love the mystery that the novels revolved around. Looking back, I laugh at how simplistic the books were...how things always fell into place for Nancy. How she always ended up at the right place at the right time, and with a little bit of snooping around, she'd solve all her myteries. Just like that! Yet, it seemed so adventurous & thrilling at the time!

The mention of Nancy Drew can never be complete without the mention of the other characters in the novel. Her two best friends - the slightly overweight Bess Marvin who used to get a lot of flak from Nancy and her other cousin George, who was quite tomboyish; Nancy's boyfriend Ned Nickerson, George's boyfriend Burt Eddleton and Bess' boyfriend Dave Evans. It would be fun to watch Nancy and her friends revv up some action on the screen.

Btw, I just learnt that Carolyn Keene never existed! The name was invented by the publishers. No matter who wrote the book, it went by Carolyn Keene.

Jack n Diane

A little ditty 'bout Jack & Diane
Two american kids growing up in the heart land
Jack he's gonna be a football star
Diane debutante in the back seat of Jacky's car
Suckin' on chilli dog outside the tastee freez
Diane sitting on Jacky's lap got his hands between her knees
Jack he says "hey Diane let's run off behind a shady tree
Dribble off those bobby brooks let me do what I please"
Saying:Oh yeah - life goes on
Long after the thrill of living is gone
Sayin' Oh yeah - life goes on
Long after the thrill of living is gone
Now walk on

To quote Robert Frost: "Everything I've learnt about life I can sum up in three words: it goes on."

Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

Laaga Chunari Mein Daag has got to be one of THE MOST regressive movies of all time. The story goes something like this - Rani & Konkona are daughters of Anupam Kher & Jaya Bachchan. The family lives in penury in a dilapidated palatial house in Benaras. The dad (Anupam Kher) does nothing in life except crib that he doesn't have a son. The mom (Jaya Bachchan) spends all night stitching clothes and weeping. Stuff happens, Rani finally has enough of the "I wish I had a son, he would've taken care of me" crap from her dad, and decides to go to Mumbai to find a job. She's obviously a pretty innocent small-town girl coming to the big bad city of wolves. She tries to get a job at a call center but is refused because she hasn't even cleared her Std.10th exams and can't speak English. The head of the call center takes advantage of her by asking her to sleep with him in return for a job, which he doesn't give her anyway. She sleeps with him and that's the proverbial end of her innocence. She meets Suchitra Pillai, who advises her to become an exclusive high-society call girl. Rani figures she's slept with one man for money (which is good, btw) so she might as well sleep with the rest of the men in the world!

That's the "journey of the woman" the producers of the movie are talking about. The rest of the movie is predictable and inconsequential, except the scene where Konkona finds out the truth about her sister and her reaction to it.

I had a lot of issues with the movie. For starters, had it been a movie based in the 1970s or so, the premise of a small-town girl coming to a big city and ending up as a prostitute might have made sense. But the story is set in today's times, in contemporary Mumbai with parts of it based in Switzerland! Today, there are lots of other avenues for women who come to Mumbai in search of a job. Any call center or store would have given her a job (maybe not a high profile one but a smaller one for sure) - they train you in English anyway! Prostitution is not the only recourse for not very highly educated small-town women coming to Mumbai.

Secondly, I would like to know what exactly Suchitra Pillai does for a living that she's advising Rani Mukherjee to become a call girl of all things! The scriptwriter/director conveniently forgot to reveal that!

Jaya Bachchan is a mother like no other. Her distraught daughter calls her from Mumbai to ask her whether she should give in to the demands of the call center guy, and though Jaya Bachchan is a little harried in that scene, she asks her daughter to do whatever she thinks is good for the family! And later, when Konkona is getting married, Jaya Bachchan asks Rani not to come to Beneras for her only sister's wedding because people might talk and the wedding might get jeopardized!

Rani Mukherjee becomes the mistress of a wealthy patent lawyer (or something of the sorts) who gets her a plush apartment in Mumbai, takes her globe-trotting to his conferences, and introduces her as his PR manager! My friend, who is also into PR, took deep offence to this, and I sympathize with her all the way. Even I would've been mighty pissed if he had introduced her as the Market Research consultant for his firm!

Finally, I would like to know why the dad was allowed to get away so easily in the end, with being such a useless thing. Throughout the movie he cribs about how he wishes he had a son, does nothing productive in life that would help improve his family's financial situation, and when he finds out the truth about Rani, simply hugs his family, says sorry and absolves himself of all guilt or responsibility. Honestly, it will be terrible to have a father like him!

There was one scene (that I remember now) in the movie that I found completely bizarre. Rani sings a song with Abhishek Bachchan in Switzerland, goes to have breakfast/coffee with him, gets a phone call, goes away to take it, and disappears! She doesn't even bother to tell him that something urgent has come up & she needs to go. Who acts like that?!!

I went to watch the movie b/c of Pradeep Sarkar who made a sensible & immensely watchable movie like Parineeta. I wonder what compelled him to make a regressive and implausible movie as Laaga...I really wonder. The only good things about the movie are the shots of Benaras (breathtaking!) and the title track.

Urban Jungle

The newspapers are plastered with stories of Faisal Khan suffering from schizophrenia. The latest is that his father Tahir Hussain has been awarded his custody inspite of Amir Khan's two page appeal in the Mumbai Mirror on why he, and not his father, should be given custody of Faisal Khan (though I fail to understand why Amir Khan or his lawyers would share his two page appeal with Mumbai Mirror, and then complain that their intensely private family matter is being splashed in the media!).

People often wonder how human beings go insane. I wonder how we manage to remain sane, amidst all that goes around inside and outside of us! We live in crazy cities, work stressful jobs, have a maddening lifestyle, manage & juggle numerous relationships at any given point of time, each with its own set of issues. Life is always demanding things of us. Besides there are so many chemicals being secreted in our brains all the time. One little imbalance here or there, and we risk losing our sanity! Mental balance is such a fragile thing...How do we manage to maintain it amidst all this madness and hysteria?!!

It's an extremely scary thought...and equally intriguing.

Reminds me of the song 'Crazy' by Seal...

We're never gonna survive
Unless we get a little crazy
No, we're never gonna survive
Unless we are a little crazy