Bollywood and "The Freaks"

Rounds upon Rounds in telecons between Freaks, we discuss the losers of Bollywood. We devote heaps of email communication on discussing them. Some obviously get paid for doing only such work ;-) .

We discuss about the various hijdas or the cleavage artists which abound in the bollywood industry and recount experiences about how we ended up watching a particularly awful movie and how idiots were we in purchasing tickets at times in 'black'.

We also discuss the comparisions of various actors with their contemporaries in Hollywood and how meaningless these comparisons are. But this let me to think, why do we see it at all.

We miss the atmosphere of a Desi theatre out here. We miss all that we did in the theatre in India compared to here. However pathetic movie we go to see, it would not have been without the catcalls, the smart comments and the pure rustic sounds in the theatres which would enable us to sit through the 3 hrs of pure depression we see in front of us and as we try to find out the art of filmmaking (or rather the dearth of it).

Has any Indian movie been complete without the customary intermission. Where Samosa's, Popcorns and Sodas rule the roost. More of a ritual which enhances the movie experiences.

Going to movies in India was second nature. If ur sitting at home and getting bored, we would go to the movies. We want to go for a date or just hang out, what better option than Movies. Turns out to be cheaper and have a whole lot of things to say about the movie.

I know some people who go for all kind of movies whether it is Hindi , English or the pathetic Hinglish ( where English movies are dubbed in Hindi) I guess the last one was the most interesting of all of them as we see the mayhem caused in the translation and the source of all comments during the same period.

We all have had stories to tell about how we paid Rs xxx for very bad movie in which some hijda was acting and recount all the horror we saw on the screen and the disgusting antics.

But with all said and done, we still dont miss any chance to go and see a 3hrs bullshit packed Bollywood movie, whether the actor / actress/ director have not delivered at all --- coz the irony is that we enjoy the boredoom.

Cricket !!! Personal Fiefdoms or Nation's Pride

Keeping track of what latest developments occur in the cricketing world, it seems in most of the teams, news related to on field activities take up headlines rather than off field activities (except of course Zimbabwe).

Just seeing the latest controversy, it makes me wonder, even if we win the world cup in some future date, will we be the world champions in the real sense.

Are we professional enough ?

Was Sourav right in talking to the press about his conversation with the coach and the selection committee? And that too with a smirk in the face just because he scored 100 runs against a bad pace attack. Maybe the coach may have been right / wrong in saying Sourav to quit being a captain but has it been proper to bring such a conversation the fore and wash dirty linen in press. I dont think the rumor of the coach asking him to step down would have been generated just like that but more of a inside leak of the selection meeting.

Isnt captaincy to be conferred to the person, who is best suited for it, as he represents the National cricket team and the pride of the nation. Or is it a personal fiefdom where the prince's and kings rule the roost. What are they protecting the Nation's pride or their own pride?

How did the entire email from the coach to the BCCI president be leaked. As a committee are they not responsible enough to keep conversations to themselves private enough. Isnt it true that most of the denizens on the net keep there emails private without any leakage unless they would like it too?

What do the BCCI do after the receipt of the email --- Take an entire 4 days to come up with a solution .... Appoint a committee ... Isnt it beaureacratic enough ... If it represents the problems of the national team and if they are really grave as the Coach's email suggests ... then doesnt it need to be resolved at the earliest. Rather than having a committee to negotiate between both of them, let the coach be allowed to prove his contents from the email and Sourav be cross examined to determine whether it is the case or not. Punishment as are the rewards should be swift and decisive for either party.

It is not that I do not support my team. But I also want to be proud of my team. I want it to be professional enough. I want every player to play for the Nation's pride rather than their pride / egos. I want them to protect our pride rather than their kingdoms ...

Is it asking too much ! This is how I visualize my team to be and the captain should be a leader not a manipulator.
Is it asking too much !!! I dont think so !

loooookatheeeem

a true loooooooookkkatheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemm

Bihar Board Examinations Vol 01

A million requests, a hundred discussions and incessant exhorting later, here I am posting my first blog on Freaks Inc. Opted for a beaten to death story about my experiences with the Std 10th board examinations in the state of Bihar. I divide the story (incident) into two volumes (a la Kill Bill). The first vol. with my experiences as a student appearing for the examination and the second about my experiences behind the scenes.

Chapter 1. Moving to the exam center

Not all the private("English medium") schools in Bihar are registered. So the schools encourage students to appear for the 10th exam through any other school run by the state government. This is a win - win situation. Private schools manage to get their students to appear for board exams and the government run schools get to show the good results produced by these "alien" students in their annual review to justify their existence. The result, if any, is that the students are allotted an examination center too far from their homes, which means they cannot commute daily and have to relocate to their centers. I received my admit card and came to know that my center was 50 miles away from where I used to study. So reluctantly I packed my bag and moved to this new place called Pakhnaha Bazar.

Chapter 2. The Motel owner

This small place on the outskirts of my town was literally a village (gaon) ( with all due respects..somewhat like the one in KR Narayanan's Malgudi).Its rustic look was characterized with unfinished muddy roads, lush green fields, a duck pond and an open-air theater. The most preferred means of communication for the inhabitants were bullock-carts or horse-carts (taangaas).The visitors usually rode motorbikes to get to their destinations. With great difficulty,I managed to find a motel(a bungalow) which wasn't too far from the center, may be a mile away. My motel owner was a nice old gentleman who had a proven track record of hosting many a Std Xth student over the years in his bungalow. A religious, God-fearing person, he used to get up at 4'o clock in the morning for his namaaz. For some reason, even after a proper introduction, he assumed that my name was "David" (David .. Pushkar..how phonetically similar eh ? ). Concerned and caring that he was, my daily morning alarm ( usually set for 5am) was substituted by the motel owner's call "David Utho" which was easily more irritating than the standard "tininic-tininic".Sometimes even now, I can hear those haunting words resound in my mind.

Chapter 3. The task force

A student appearing for his std Xth examination was accompanied by a lot of excess baggage..well literally ! Apart from his usual luggage, a task force for moral support in the form of eight(excuse me...8!) people. Each one of them had a well defined raison d'etre and they functioned with seamless integration. While No 1. would be busy pumping water from the borewell, his counterpart No. 2 would be enjoying a nice warm bath(in the open..absolutely no inhibitions) humming the latest movie songs.The third would be chopping onions while the fourth would have the frying pan ready for the "sautee"(tadka).The adventurous No. 5 and 6 would be on their customary visit to the nearby forest to get the banana leaves for the meal(plates were a luxury). While the seventh, the chef of the group, would be busy cooking rice in an open vessel, his eyes half closed with the fumes from the cooking pyre, the 8th (the psychologist of the group) would be giving pep talks to the candidate(candidate who ???), readying him for the test ahead.Each one could reverse their roles with consummate ease and still function with maximum efficiency.

Chapter 4. The examination hall

A typical gaon ki pathshaala, with a huge playground and a big front gate.The classrooms,with atleast five big windows so that people can come in / escape at will.The atmosphere is just normal, like any class test with students just hanging around in the campus having their usual talks..no tension, no nerves whatsoever.Once the bell rang the students ran into the classroom, carrying their notes and books with them inside the examination hall.(Technically a closed book examination..if you may).With a stack of books on their desk,a bunch of notes under, and several cheat-sheets on their body, the student gears up before the starting bell rings.Finally, by the time this preparation is done, the student is so exhausted that all he cares about is gathering his thoughts ( assisted with books & notes and external support task force) and vomiting them on the answer sheet and just getting it over with. The preparation for the examination is clearly much tougher than the examination itself. The exam is all about you, but the preparation is about skillful planning, resource handling, project management and meticulous execution,something which would leave Roger Pressman(Guru of Software engg) searching for words.

Those were the first four chapters. The gory details of the examination and what goes on behind the scenes will be the subject matter in Vol2.So I end this first account of my experiences with a tag line"...wait with bated breath for Vol2 (Behind the scenes) "

~Pushkar

Life: A cruel Conundrum

Blasts at home, hurricanes away from home

Thousands stranded, locked up in a dome

Nature’s fury matching raging human syndrome

Leaving innocents like a dog without a bone.

Clicking away at the women and children who bleed

And selling them to magazines and TV to feed

Is this a punishment for many a wrong deed?

Repercussions for all the evil that we seed.

Schism in religion, a country almost Balkanized

A few bad men, a complete race ostracized

Innocent massacred and the silent traumatized

Is this how GOD wanted us to be characterized?

Mindless looting and unending corruption

Right from the start of democracy’s inception

‘We the people’ is a manifested deception

The future beholds just the road to perdition.

Reams of work on righteousness and wisdom

Just seems a a waste of time and path to boredom

What next after leading your life in Sodom

It makes death an aperture to freedom.

Yesterday’s pains, today is awry

Fooled by a charade, it’s not worth a try

Incessant sycophancy, you wonder why

Life is cruel son; you can’t help but sigh.

-Balls

Back in Black

Fellow Freaks,
Heres the new template, the theme being the ACDC classic "Back in Black". The good thing apart from simplicity is that the blog titles have started to appear in a different font, something which was missing in the previous template. Some more changes which might seem a bit of the blue is the reduction in the contributors list. As and when one of you ( non-contributors) write a blog, the blog template will be updated to add your name to the list. You all still remain members of Freaks Inc and you have access to create new posts. Just being fair in drawing the line between Freaks who read/comment but do not write( = non-freaks on the web) and the others who neither read nor comment nor write.

A few action points:

• Please make sure that you post all future blogs in small font size.
• If anyone has the drive, please try to update the main page title using a font other than that used in the template. Need a CSS expert here.
• Please provide your opinions regarding the new template. If you think that it sucks, please find another one which feels best (Movable types etc) and deploy it. ( admin rights will be given as and when necessary)
• Think of a new tag line for our blog.
• Please think of any new links which you might think interesting to add to the Links section
• Try to become a CONTRIBUTOR

Happy blogging

I was searching for a nice template for our blog but as always the intended search ended up being a visit to many bloggers' sites. I stumbled upon this girl's blog and she had a post which totally cracked me up

It read
"All women are bitches... some just try harder to hide that fact "

There were about ten comments from the fairer sex..they concurred !
Paints a pretty neat picture..doesn't it? :-))

B"aa"sten Travelogue

B"aa"sten Travelogue

Sorry to be hogging too much space..if there is a plethora of blogs the coming week, I 'll move this blog to a text file and create a link.

Before you jump on me asking why I spelt Boston as Baasten, let me tell you that the city smells funky. A beautiful historic city split by the River Charles, which runs through the heart of its downtown. You walk across the trail touching all the historic sites and as you feel this whiff of fresh air.. well 80% of the time, the other 20% you are greeted with this funky smell every avenue you cross, every block you walk.So much so that we rechristened the city Baasten. Rechristening and inventing new cult dialogues was the essence of this trip. A day-2-day event log (Enough footage to each event -- Hail Dr Saab !)

Fri Sep 2: Bala and Kausum headed to Boston from Baltimore by their 7.40 flight which reached Manchester, NH at 9.00. Savitha( a.k.a Savithamma was supposed to pick us up from the Manchester airport). So till 10pm, the time my United Airways flight reached Manchester, I guess Savitha and Kausum had to endure Bala's trademark leg-pulling for which there is never really a good retort except SILENCE sometimes.Headed home and reached by 11. Savitha's house is a three bedroom- 2 1/2 bath beautiful but stereotypical American townhome. Huge living room,three bedrooms and a kitchen,spotlessly clean and let me just say 'Looks like a home'. Some exquisite tomato rice and egg-mushroom rice with Raita was the menu as decided (Apna to baat ho gaya tha naa).Had our customary chat and leg-pulling session and went to bed a bit early after reading the hillarious shaadi.com success stories (a new name for absolute disaster)

Sat Sep 3: POA was to get up early, but the peace you feel sleeping late on weekends and the thought that there were three more days of vacation left, ensured that we got our lazy asses out of bed around 11.30.Took the 'T'(the metro) to Boston downtown.Had Khaana Waana at the Sultan's Middle Eastern Cuisine and then trudged along to Quincy Market.Its a nice happening place with some street performance or the other going on.We saw an Aussie juggler, who had us in splits and then some elastic bodies who did all the acrobatics which would make Nadia Comaneci et al proud. Visited one of the oldest post offices and took a lot of pictures.Just across the street is a wharf and we can see the beautiful Logan airport landing strip.We started to walk along the 'Red Line'( read Reah lie) , the historic Boston downtown trail. The trail touches all the historic sites in Boston downtown right from the old post offices, courthouses , the innumerable buildings built by Goli's early progenies and finally leads us into the NY Central Park style Boston Commons.There is a duck pond in the center of the park where I made a few swans with low intellectual ability earn their food. We then walked along the Boylston street and saw this church where supposedly the first gay marriage ("I hereby pronounce you husband and husband" sort) was held. Our trail ended with a nice stroll along the banks of the river Charles with the magnificient Boston skyline in the backdrop.Savitha then beefed up our expectations about a Chaat place called "Punjab" which is supposedly famous for Bombay style pani-puri, bhel-puri and other chaat.( Balls pls comment on this). A brilliant evening was ended by a fun
filled hour at the bowling alley where we also played frictionless table 1-on-1 hockey.

Sun Sep 4:Last year labor day weekend I was in Boston and I had gone on a picture clicking spree .A usual messup not surprisingly.. and I lost all of them. The day I had awaited had arrived .I was ready to go back to get what I had lost (Been there done that pictures).After a nice lunch at a Thai/Korean/Chinese place we were on our way to the hallowed grounds of MIT. Walking through the long corridoors, we were like the whingeing Poms with comments like "This is where I belong".It is a pretty humbling experience to be in a place which is the abode of beings
who are several intellectual stratas above us. The main dome is simply spectacular and each and every structure exhibits top notch architecture. Every brick in the walls of MIT emanates class . The exquisite old buildings of the Gugenheim Aeronautical Labs and the main dome have a perfect foil in the Stata Center whose structure I failed to comprehend. A bizarre (of snow bizarre) structure with aluminium foils protruding out, it encompasses a multitude of geometric shapes.But still has a peculiar brilliance confirming the rebellious genius of these MITians.An hour and twenty "been there done that " photographs later we were on our way to the Harward
campus.Our stay at Harvard was pretty short and most of the time was spent near the statue of John Harvard, polishing his shoes to gain the much required intelligence we were deprived of since birth.Dinner was at the Indian restaurant Bombay, where I once again helped these guys finish off everything in great style cleaning my plate to the extent of seeing my face in it (hyperboles galore).The dumb charades we played at night was a fitting end to a fun filled day.

Mon Sep 5:Theme of the day..RELAX karte hai. Did nothing..sat on our asses..ate nice upma made by Sav and in the evening we were back to where it all began..back to our world where we would be doing the same old breathe,eat,drink,spawn and die.

Top three incidents:
3.The absolutely whacky game of frictionless table hockey in the games arcade of "Games and Lanes" after an hour of bowling.The number of own goals we scored while playing each other just putting pace before guile was absolutely hillarious.Absolutely all aspects of our personality came out within half an hour of play.Bala crumbled under pressure created by the opponent and I under the pressure created by myself.
2.The rechristening of Savitha as Savithamma and her absolute cult dialogue "I am such an angel as compared to you guys" during the necessary talks of death and destruction.
1.Bala's new Freaks top 20, "Issi ke saath.." which was the standard after every short conversation ended and a cigarette was lit.

Conclusion : Bala and I were discussing that we usually go on a trip with the Freaks gang and even if the place leaves a lot to be desired, its the companionship which makes the trip a huge hit. The Boston trip was a deviation to the norm(not the normal Freaks gang) , but excellent planning( due credits Savitha), less driving and the numerous funny incidents makes it a trip, which will give me fond memories when I am as old as Goli ( in my zillionth life).

Blog Day !!!

31st Aug is known as Blog Day. Why was it decided to be the Blog Day .. Well look at the picture and u will guess why.

How about talking about various blogs we may have surfed up. Marw should provide lots of links for that .... as he always does.

But we can write a couple of lines about blogs and whether it is bad / worse or worst or really good blogging Innovating !!!

Let me start with one.

The Indrajal Comic Project : This blog is started which scans all the indrajal comics of our yesteryears. The comics published are actually provided by various members who scan and send them. This is one of the original ideas and very desi at heart.

Do try to share more blogs which you feel interesting