Infidel

Here is yet another typically Shobhaa De piece. Where she boldly and bravely speaks out against the fairytale of happily married. And applauds Karan Johar for having the guts to come out with such a bold film [Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, and it's about *yawn* adultery], which can potentially damage his credo at the Box Office.
She also says that India needs a Bollywood film made by someone of Karan’s sensibility and mass appeal for the Sati-Savitri stereotypes to crumble. Hell’s Bells, the Indian moviegoer is upto his neck with themes similar to this one. And ha, will one movie, or for that matter, a dozen or more movies of this type do anything to the psyche of the moviegoer from the Cowbelt, or even the multiplex audience?
Well, maybe, just maybe, if the women had any semblance to what women are like in real life. I agree with Ms. De to the point where she feels that women in real life aren’t the self-sacrificing types shown in the movies and people should stop expecting them to be so. But isn’t it preposterous to suggest that Karan Johar portrays women faithfully? Just look at Anjali, or Tina, or Naina Catherine Kapoor, or Pooja… Aren’t they just caricatures of Tomboy, Heroine, Stressed-Out Breadwinner, and an over-the-top, exaggeratedly comic version of Femme Fatale?
And just how is adultery a solution to anything? How does having an incompatible spouse justify your finding pleasure outside of the relationship? Divorce, maybe, is justified by the above reason, but certainly not adultery, which is, anyway just another word for unfaithfulness.
Ms. De foresees that the treatment given to the plot and the theme will be such that the audience empathizes with the philandering woman. But why should they? Why should we accept adultery as just another thing in life, and take it in our stride when it happens? Doesn’t that go totally against our concept of marriage, as we know it? As far as we know, Ms. De isn’t one of those who don’t believe in marriage, or are cynical about it, that her having such a point of view is justified.
As for those who don’t believe in marriage, and are applauding Karan Johar for Breaking the Rules [with adultery], ha, why at all get married, if you’re not going to give all to the relationship?
As for Breaking the Rules, maybe we should be doing so, but not in favour of heartbreak and anarchy, which are not on the path to a more stable social structure.
Talking of a which, the only solutions I can think of, off the top of my mind are Galaxia, which is a global organism, as portrayed by Asimov in Foundation and Earth, or a society of hermaphrodites, like Solaria, from the same novel. What I’m trying to say is that there are no easy solutions to keep a marriage intact, unless the very existence of the parties involved in the relationship depended on the stability of the relationship, as in Galaxia, or the non-existence of such an unstable bond, as in Solaria.
And for this potentially epoch-making film… I don’t think this is going to herald the coming of a great social revolution. Just like Salaam Namaste didn’t make an iota of difference to people’s perception of live-in relationships. It takes a lot more than films to reverse our dogmas and hypocrisies, or even bring them to light. And filmmakers make such films not ‘coz they feel like on the cusp of a dramatic social change, or ‘coz they rightly estimate the sensibilities of the audience. A hatke theme is a big draw, as far as curiosity is concerned, and this includes the Indian media, which promptly laps it all up, blows it all out of proportion and delights in declaring again and again that Indian audiences are growing more open minded. Add to that a dozen-or-so hit song-and-dance sequences, and heartstring-tugging dialogues and a director like Karan Johar who revels in three hours of swinging the audiences’ emotions from crest to abyss to crest, and there you have a runaway success.
As for Ms. De, who so delights in declaring her hi-fi contacts so often in her columns…Pah! Advertising knows no limits.

Once ’round the sun

A year, now. A YEAR! It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long since we came out with our test post. Forty posts up, this is the forty-first [roughly a post every nine days]. Are we proud, or are we proud.
It was a boring Sunday evening near the fag end of our second semester when Tu and me were reading The Hindu’s supplement, which had an article on blogging. Just like that [like most other decisions I make], we decided to start scribbling online.
And here we are, with The NITK Numbskulls Page [couldn’t think of a more open-ended title] still scribbling away, never having stopped to think.
We aren’t doing anything new, or path breaking, or epoch-making. We don’t write ‘coz it is going to help us down the line in CAT or GRE. We don’t blog ‘coz it’s cool to do so, or ‘coz everyone else is doing it. We don’t write here just ‘coz we want to know what the world thinks of us. No, this blog isn’t a stairway to anything else; it exists just for our love of writing.
Now comes the big question asked on birthdays… have we improved, generally? I should think not, as far as I am concerned, for reasons elaborated in my previous post. But then, putting thoughts into writing has generally helped: I am more confident of being able to write, and think better of my thoughts now. I also objectively analyze others’ writing better now, and don’t just take them at face value anymore.
Otherwise… well, I’ve finally come to the conclusion that verbosity while just getting your ideas across isn’t necessarily bad, but verbosity that obscures what you’re trying to say, is. Broadly, I can say that it all depends on what you want the effect of your writing to be.
And I’ve also discovered that the best writing comes from deep within, and comes only when you are actually strongly feeling what you’re writing. Maybe that is coz it adds believability and hence, life to your words.
I haven’t made any rules for myself as yet [should I have?], but write guided by what I would like to read.
I don’t yet know about good and bad writing, other than that while reading good writing, you’re able to feel what the writer feels, or wants you to feel, whereas with bad writing, you get thoroughly irritated with everything about it and you actually pay less attention to what the writer is trying to say than to how he’s saying it.
And there’ve been some posts which never came off, stuff which I tried to write, unsuccessfully: There was one on Woodstock, and whether we could have another edition in this age of rampant consumerism, which I tried thrice to finish, but it always ended up as another version of the Woodstock entry in Wiki.
Then there was one about how Rang De Basanti was such a farce, and how Ayutha Ezhuthu deserves to be the one hogging all the plaudits, and be telecast on August 15.
Of all of those which I have published, my favourite has been this one. It wasn’t much-read, being written in the initial days of the blog.
As much as we’ve enjoyed writing here, we’ve also enjoyed reading other blogs and hopefully others have enjoyed reading this page. Thanks to our blogger brothers and sisters who read us and care to leave a comment… that’d be a whole bunch of people:
Starting with our batch mates Deepika and Nitin [or Speed and Finance Freak], dear friend Deepti Bhat who’s clear thoughts are a dee-light to read [don’t believe her when she calls herself Xtremely Insane], Anant Jain, who is among the first to read my posts [he's got RSS feeds, ], venerable seniors Dhaval Giani and Gautham Shenoy, fellow NIT-ians Shashi, Jayanth, Tony, The Monk, and Karthik aka CB, Aravind and Abhilash, as also Karthik Ramakrishnan.
And how could I forget Mr./Ms. Anonymous? Of the twelve months we’ve been blogging, this person’s been reading us for eight [assuming, of course, that (s)he’s been the only anonymous person who’s stubbornly refused to use an alias]. We wonder who you are that you’re jobless enough to be trashing us for so long.
And, finally, to the guy who inspired me to start blogging- longtime friend and fellow Beatle-maniac Nakul Krishna, who’s Twelve-Bar Original was such a delight to read…Nakul, I thank you for having taught me new things, and new ways of thinking, and above all, being there as a constant source of inspiration, and a lasting influence in my life.

Over a cuppa

To my agony aunt, who learnt the hard way that all nice guys are either gay or taken.

I hate to say ‘I told you so’
Don’t despair, just let it go
There are bigger fish in the sea
Just waiting up for you and me

But care two hoots, who gives a shit
They matter not, and just don’t fit
Into the scheme of our lives
Cheer up, gal, high five?
Nothing’s changed with me and you
We’re still the same ol’ two
Crazy gals cutting chai
Hakuna Matata, plain yenjaai.

A cuppa, anytime, on me;
You’ve always been there for me
Let’s stick around this coffee shop
Till the waiters blow their top
And throw us out, like they always do
Who cares!
Our spirit’s never quashed, our laughter too.