method to the madness

It took me a couple of weeks, but I think I finally nailed them down. Here are the traffic rules if you are driving in India (oh yeah, there are rules):

1. Drive as if no one has mirrors
   
   
2. Anything that moves, belongs. And everyone is equal. No discrimination:
   Auto rickshaws (now these are more equal than the others)
   Motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, pedestrians
   Cars, buses, trucks
   Bullock carts, hand carts, tangas (RTA approved), bicycle rickshaws
   
   
3. Everyone has a right of way. Here is everyone:
   Auto rickshaws
   people* who are just joining the traffic
   people who are going across at intersections
   people making U-turns
   people going against the traffic
   people stopping in the middle of the road just for the heck of it
   people trying to overtake (some successfully and others, not so much)
   
   * people includes everyone listed in #2 and if luck would have it, some stray animals
   
   
4. Pedestrians may behave as traffic police and stop you with the use of hand signals
   
   
5. If there is space, it will be taken. You may think that there isn’t enough room for your hatchback, but don’t be surprised if a bus is trying to squeeze into the same space
   
   
6. Even if you have a red-light, use common sense – if no one's coming from the other side, don’t wait for the light to change, like an idiot. If you can go, go!
   
   Conversely, just because you have green doesn’t mean you can go through the intersection as if you own it. There might be cross traffic, so, slow down.
   
   
7. If you forget any or all of rules #1 to #6, it’s okay. Just remember #8.
   
   
8. Don’t be shy, use the horn like your life depends on it (because it does)
   
   
9. Last Rule (or first): Pray to God
   
   Honk, Goddamnit, Honk!
   
   
10. This is more of an observation than a rule: if you are an atheist, God help you!

My Name Is Khan... and I cry in every movie

Saw a couple of kids playing a game last night. One kid says a word and the other responds with whatever comes to his mind. One said, "Cricket guru" and the second kid responded, "Sachin Tendulkar".

Now, Rex being Rex, looked at me and mouthed, "miserable fuck - George Bush" (for folks who don't know, that's what Google used to say during the Dark Ages. If you typed miserable failure in Google and clicked on the 'I'm Feeling Lucky' button, it used to take you Bush's profile page in the White House website). That's Rex's idea of playing along. Good thing the kids didn't know what George Bush was.

Anyway, it was the second kid's turn and he said "My name is Khan". I got a little too excited and shouted "Shahrukh Khan". I didn't mean to butt in, I swear, but both the kids threw me a nasty stare. Then the first kid looks at me and says, "easy question, I will answer!"

Rex laughed himself silly and then asked, "Would you have said that a couple of years ago? Before the latest movie was conceived." I thought I would have. Shahrukh Khan has always been the crowd favorite.

I only started watching Hindi movies in 1995. It was that year that I saw Sholay, Jo-Jeeta-Wohi-Sikandar, Baazigar, Anand, Baawarchi, Aandhi, Namak-Halal, Don and the other movie where SRK played the psycho piss-ant. But Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, Rajesh Khanna were gone by then; Aamir Khan, Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan were the contemporary actors. Our of the three Khans, SRK was the superstar. I knew some girls in class were crazy about him. I was told that they all were.

The charm, Rex explained, was being both sensitive and macho. "That's a rare combination", says Rex. He'd beat up the baddies in one scene and then cry in his mother's lap (or a sweetheart's arms) in another. Here was a guy who wouldn't hold his tears back.

Now, here's the kicker - why doesn't he hold his tears back? I can see how a guy who cries is construed to be sensitive and caring. But is that the only way SRK can portray that he is sensitive and caring? Why does he HAVE to cry in every goddamn movie?

Here is a list of SRK movies I can remember watching:

• Raju-Ban-Gaya-Gentleman
• Baazigar
• Darr
• Karan-Arjun
• Dilwale-Dulhania-Le-Jayenge
• Ram-Jaane
• Trimurti
• Koyla
• Yes-Boss
• Pardes
• Dil-To-Pagal-Hai
• Dil-Se
• Kuch-Kuch-Hota-Hai
• Hey-Ram
• Mohabbatein
• Kabhi-Khushi-Kabhi-Gham
• Devdas
• Kal-Ho-Na-Ho
• Main-Hoon-Na
• Swades
• Chalte-Chalte
• Veer-Zaara
• Chak-De-India
• Rab-Ne-Bana-Di-Jodi

Has he cried in every one of them? Bet your ass he did.

I haven't watched his latest movie "My Name is Khan" and I haven't talked to anyone about it. But I'm willing to bet all of this January's pay that he's going to cry in that movie (minus the vig, of course).

Here's wishing Dingus Khan will learn to portray his sensitive side without crying.

The Indian Road

When I made a decision to move to India, I was pretty excited about good food, inexpensive labor and the prospect of not having to do my own laundry. At the same time, I also anticipated some shock. I realized it’s been a while since I bustled with the herd here. I never worked in India and I got really comfortable in America. So I figured there would be some adjustment needed.

But how bad could it be? It’s India; it’s home!

The next decision to make was about where to live. Hyderabad seemed like a good choice – not a metropolis like Bangalore or Bombay nor is it a small town. Moreover, we still had a house there. So, I decided I’ll be around my mom and eat good food and generally be a nice boy and let her pamper me (as much as I could take it).

The first few weeks were pretty smooth. The guy from the bank came home to get my details and set up the bank account. An agent applied for a PAN card on my behalf for 200 bucks. Mom bothering me to tell her what curry to make for the next meal! I was just cruising on comfort lane.

I was settling down, and transportation was one of the few problems I faced. The plan of action that I had set out for myself was to decide after checking out each mode of transportation – bus, auto-rickshaw, two-wheeler, car. If I did decide to get a car, I had to choose between a hatchback, sedan and an SUV.

Buses were fine as long as I wasn’t sandwiched between people, sweating like a pig (which you will). Auto rickshaws were fine as long as they don’t decide to take you for a ride around the city (which they do). A motorcycle, I decided quickly, was out of the question - happened to witness a couple of accidents involving motorcycles in the first month itself. So, a car it was to be.

Choosing the type of car, on the other hand, was far easier: (one of my friends explained to me) - the bigger the car, the slower it moves.

Once I decided the make and the model, we just had to choose the delivery date. I wanted to get the car as soon as possible. But all the mad ruckus about Telangana delayed the delivery date by a week. Then I had to delay it one more day because of a “Oh no, you are not getting the car on a chaviti” deal.

There was some talk about taking the car directly to the local temple, but I had to put my foot down. I wouldn’t call myself irreligious, but I always thought that taking a new vehicle for puja and dangling that special nimbu underneath the number plate, was just too much. I mean, it’s a car for godssakes; it’s not like I’m going to war! I think I heard murmurs of “wannabe yank” doing the rounds; but I wasn’t going to relent.

Two days later, I got the car out of the showroom at around six in the evening and started driving on the streets. Within the first 5 minutes, I realized what my mom was talking about. If one has to survive this traffic, one needs all the divine intervention one can get. I just told mom I had an epiphany and that I didn’t want to hurt her feelings and took the car to the temple. Lucky for me, they didn’t see the expression on my face while I was driving.

The first three days, I could not go beyond the second gear! The fifth gear, I am still saving for the special occasion. Who cares what gear it is anyway, with a 1.2L, 63 bhp engine. 63 bhp! Now that’s gotta be a joke. I never thought things with 4 wheels had 2 digit horsepower. They should at least stop calling it ‘horsepower’. I sure as heck was missing my SLK.

And the streets, they were chaos personified – there were political rallies that blocked the roads, auto-rickshaws trying to topple you over, busses being bullies, hero-hondas and pulsars filling gaps that didn’t exist, bullock carts meandering, people waving hands and crossing streets, lorries trying to play chicken with everyone, traffic flowing in all directions at the same time (and there were more than 4 directions). I needed Judas to come and split the road for me!

Or was it Moses?

Well, neither came to deliver me to the promised land (Ameerpet, in my case).


(I'm just sayin', is all...)

Playing Dirty, Always

I argue a lot. I am strongly opinionated and I don't think that arguing is innately wrong. But I believe there are some rules, just like any other, the most critical being respect for the opponent. I may be passionate about what I believe in, but, for me, that's no reason to forget that my opponent is as passionate about her opinion. Another rule, there is no right and wrong; it's all opinions.

Now, I know some really gentle people and these are folks who don't usually argue. They just sit back and hear you yapping away rather than butt in and heat things up (not too much fun, as you can imagine). But there may be one or two issues that can get even the gentlest bunch to come alive; and when they do, argumentum ad hominem seems to be the order of the day. Like the Boss says, "It may be a fallacy, but it is shore-God useful. If you use the right kind of argumentum, you can always scare the hominem into a laundry bill he didn't expect". When even the nice ones follow Governor Stark (All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren) in the spirit of the statement, one can only imagine how the rest of the herd will scream and scratch everytime they disagree. It gets downright nasty.

Take the ongoing tussle about splitting Andhra Pradesh for example. One gets to hear some of the representatives and their arguments. As expected, not a lot of them sound intelligent and their shenanigans are rowdy at best and infantile at worst. A few came up with decent arguments, but those are just exceptions not the rule. In most contentions I have heard so far, the focus has been to malign the intentions of the opponent and vilify their methods, rather than to analyze the issues and argue the pretexts while acknowledging that not all of the motivations are sinister. The more personally involved they are, the worse the calumniation. The stronger the bias, the harsher the invective. Why?

Is it that hard for people to recognize and acknowledge their bias and try to compensate for it? In doing so, would we run the risk of over-compensating? And, is it wrong or unfair to over-compensate?

In the face of such confusion, news media has an opportunity to level things out and they have been found wanting. I am not against news media taking sides. What I am looking for (AP state splitting being just one example) is an in-depth investigation of the events - within the bias - that brought the state to this crossroads and a thorough analysis of the root causes and possible solutions to be discussed. This analysis may or may not lean toward one side, but with so many channels available from so many regions, I am confident that we will find balance as a whole. They could put people of all backgrounds and biases to sit together and talk facts.

The analysis provided by the different news channels here is mediocre, the coverage perpetually rusty and the delivery, amateurish. We just seem to be able to copy the framework from the news channels of the world and not the finer details. The right questions aren't asked, the right information is not handy, allegations are not rebutted. Why?


I'm just sayin', is all...

Morons, do me a favor and dont make movies

Glimpses of the hero's face are shown, sipping his coffee, with a serious expression on his face, typing away at his desktop... Somewhere in another corner of the city, in a dark damp basement, a few vigilantes are about to kill some corrupt government officials... The coffee-sipping hero is still typing. The two scenes are definitely related. The hero is definitely the mastermind. But, what is he typing? ... Parts of the screen show that he is typing some words.. in green.. and uppercase too. Been a while since I saw a UI like that.. weird, huh? But that's beside the point.

The old bald government officials are pleading for their lives now. They confess that they have been corrupt. "Who is not corrupt these days?", they rationalize. The scum have got some nerve. They are the reason the country is like this. My adrenaline is pumping. I can taste justice, even if it is just a movie. Makes me want to grab my Kalashnikov and go kill some bastards myself.

I can see the hero now; its Chiranjeevi, the megastar of Telugu movies. I wish I could see what he is typing. I want to understand the connection between what he is typing and the executions. It's like he is typing their death sentences. He is Justice. He is telling the world why they deserve to die. Wait.. there's a shot of him from behind, showing the monitor! I can see now... he is typing IN WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER!!! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TYPING IN WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER, YOU FREAKING MORON!!

That just pisses me off.


Why is it so unimportant to follow logic in movies? When a scene is made, why cant it follow reason? Why cant it follow common sense? In a scene depicting Devaki and Vasudeva imprisoned by Devaki's brother King Kamsa, why would you show Devaki's nails painted red? Was Kamsa kind enough to furnish her with her toilette bag? When did Devaki find time to paint her nails? Between losing each child? Why is it okay for Rajinikant or Balakrishna to fly when they are portraying regular human beings in a movie? Why is this so goddamn unimportant to follow a logical scheme?

I keep hearing people say that its not important, that it is just a movie. But one cannot argue that it is imperfect; that it isn't the best. Is detail important, or not? People are getting used to missing the detail. This imbibes the notion that mediocre is just fine. That we do not need it to be perfect. That we do not need to be perfect and that a half-assed job is acceptable. The impact of these movies on the sub-conscious is tremendous. With each botched up job, a chance to create a beautiful piece of work, a chance to make it inspirational, that chance is lost.


Movies and theater serve a noble purpose - in addition to communicating ideas, they convey purpose and inculcate values. They entertain, yes, but they also inspire people to better themselves. Movies can splash ideals on canvas and make them look more colorful and less drab that they are. The television has been a revolution not because it lets us sit on the couch and be a lazy bum, but because it has brought awe inspiring ideas to the living room. It has always been the case that fact followed fiction, but that is because fiction knew no boundaries, and the dreamers have strove to picture the world the way it can be. Reality then caught up to these fantastic dreams.

Artists should be and have been on the forefront of bringing change in this world. Sadly, in India, these 'con' artists just want to make money. They probably revel in the fact that they are making a fool out of people. The more moronic the movie, the merrier the mirth when it is successful. But aren't they making a fool of themselves too?

Now in that scene, would it kill Chiranjeevi to use a text editor instead of a Media Player?

I'm just sayin', is all...