Wednesday, April 27, 2011

General musings

Its been a while, which is a good thing because now too many thoughts need to be penned.. err.. typed. Some ponderings are old, and some older. Please bear with me.

We have a beautiful national anthem, with meaningful lyrics and a lovely tune. Patriotism at its best. Since 2003, we have been standing to the national anthem right before the movie, juggling coke, popcorn, samosa and the wonderful variety of snacks now available, paying respect to it while munching the delicious cheese (I despise caramel corn) popcorn, doing justice to the flavour as should be done. Now other than being trivially inconvenient, what is this forced patriotism? Last I checked we were a democracy, I think. No, this isn’t some petition to stop it (I really would love to sign one though) but to truly wonder why are we subjected to such absurdity (to name one)? Playing the anthem before Dum Maro Dum or LSD is as inappropriate as playing dhanno as a tribute to Ambedkar. Don’t get me wrong, I love my country and all that, but to force me to sing my love (before every movie) is just asking for a word-lash or I should just follow my Dad, who protests in his small way by refusing to stand to it in the movie hall simply because he says “stop forcing me to!”

Moving on to nicer things. I’m a self-proclaimed caffeinated soul, literally. So with Costa here, I jumped with joy, again literally. My love for Costa goes back to London – running from the town centre to class, the perfect cuppa made the rush effortless. What I saw, made me fall in love with the brand all over again. Not only do they make heavenly coffee, they hire the deaf/mute as paid employees. In a country which is infrastructural-ly useless to the disabled, I almost had a tear (yes my heart goes out to them) when I saw the guy who took my order to perfection, explain my special mix to the barista in sign language. And the coffee was made to perfection. I thanked him with the biggest smile of happiness. I have never seen any place in India employ them, and I wish they take note of this. It really reaffirmed my faith in humanity; we aren’t going to die a heartless sinning lot after all. Even if Costa starts giving me shit coffee, I’ll buy a bottle of water if I have to, just to show them my loyalty and support for their policy.

By the way, there is a photographer who has a website where he uploads one photograph daily, of a random thing, and they always make me smile. I lost the url of the site, and have probably jammed google engines, but I can’t find who it is. The page layout is simple, with just one image. He lives in the states if I’m not wrong. Help?

The night of the World Cup win was legen.. wait for it.. dary! Nothing in this world unites the Indians more than cricket. Not poverty, not religion.. the electricity and passion on marine drive that night was intoxicating. Its beautiful to see such love for cricket. A special salute to Tendulkar, who is truly God’s child.

I’m tired of arguing and being forced to take sides on my love and loyalty for Apple (because I am a graphic designer) and the Blackberry (because I love bbm and a qwerty keyboard). Why can I not love both?

Please watch Barney’s Version – it redefines love and humor. Very few movies touch the soul.

Oh and the next time someone tells you they saw a movie on HBO, you can confidently tell them, “No! You didn’t!” With half the scenes cut, leaving a pointless storyline, HBO really shouldn’t bother even airing anything except children’s films (please no cartoons in Hindi).

Indian city names have changed to absurd ones. Some which are so hard to even say. India fascinates me every day.

We all get excited when we see a Ferrari zip by. But that excitement dies down with the double the force that it came, when you see a really old uncle in it. Why do we have to be 60 to be able to afford one?

P.S. Censorship issues seem to create the same magnitude of controversy as the 2G scam. So apparently it is important to cut out offensive lines/scenes in movies, even if it is essential to the script. Maybe, just maybe, the censor board should do more than talk when they give an Adult Certification to a film after chopping portions of it. Stop allowing 3-4 year olds from entering the movie hall with parents who have no one to babysit (rent a dvd or find a way!). No, kids are not stupid and yes that is the most impressionable age of a child especially when he/she is watching (umm) man and woman on the beach after snorting coke or an abusive, alcoholic father beating his 6-year-old black and blue!