Juhu-rassic Duniya

After almost 20 years, one of the greatest movie franchises is returning with another installment. I have been a huge fan of the Jurassic Park series and have seen each part – yes, even Jurassic Park 3 – so many times that I know more about dinosaurs than I know about human beings. I remember every scene from each of the movies and I still get scared watching the velociraptor and his cronies stalk those kids in the first part even though there are more terrible things in the world such as rape, terrorism, Justin Bieber etc. Anyway, as soon as I booked the movie tickets and was flaunting them more proudly than Barcelona fans after winning the Champion’s League final, one of my acquaintances remarked “Jurassic Park is a movie for kids!”

There aren’t many things in the world that irritate me/frustrate me/boil my blood and vaporize it/make me explode. Other than Honey Singh, Ekta Kapoor, Justin Bieber (already mentioned in opening paragraph) … Umm, anyway! That statement somehow angered me so much that the brand ambassador of anger, Hulk himself, would seem like a pretty kitten with a pretty pink bow. I generally try and avoid assaulting such people even though they may deserve it because such violent acts tend to be followed by a lengthy punishment for the culprit unless he has an entourage of people kissing his behind and voicing their support for him and going on hunger strikes or he has enough money to delay the court hearing by many years while systematically destroying critical evidence and making witnesses disappear faster than Honey Singh can say ‘Yo’. So, I took a deep breath and counted to ten and diverted my energy into thinking of some ways in which our movie/serial makers could spoil ruin annihilate destroy adapt the original movie and release our very own desi version.

Rohit Shetty – The title of the movie will be ‘Golmaal, 65 million years later’.  The movie will not have a specific story but will involve a lot of exploding cars, monorails, Gyro spheres, flying/bouncing/revolving dinosaurs* and Ajay Devgan.

Ekta Kapoor – Firstly the male lead would naturally be a female with a very Sanskari name. She and other members of her ‘richer than God’ family will be part of a tour group of a motley collection of bad actors who couldn’t get a part in any other movie or TV show. They will get attacked by dinosaurs, between long advertisement breaks, but the Sanskari bahu will give a monolinguistic speech and rationalize with the dinosaurs about the perils of eating humans and ask them how they’ll feel if humans ate them instead. She’ll convince them to give up eating meat and even make the female dinosaurs fast on Tuesdays for the safety of their husbands because being a dinosaur brings with it a perilous environment and a surprisingly high rate of mortality especially if there is a huge genetically modified carnivore with anger issues on the loose. The tour will obviously last so long that the dinosaurs will commit suicide become extinct and just when you’re thinking that the movie is about to end while counting the number of hairs that have turned grey, there will be a generation leap and the tour will repeat with the same family albeit with their great-great-great grandchildren.

Salman Khan – No prizes for guessing the lead actor in this movie. The main plot of this movie will have ‘Bhai’ taking a group of poor children to visit the park because they don’t have any money for food or clothing but seeing dinosaurs will somehow make them feel better about their wretched lives. He will, of course, meet the love of his life in the park and he will impress her by wrestling the Tyrannosaurus Rex. The T-Rex will lose but the hero will get badly injured and his heroine will fall in love with him while tending to his injuries. At the same time, the villain will unleash hell upon the park visitors because he has been training a genetically enhanced dinosaur who has not eaten anything since the last Jurassic Park movie released. The onus will fall upon ‘Bhai’ to take down this deadly beast in a battle grander than any that Godzilla may have been a part of. The movie will have a happy ending with the hero marrying the heroine, adopting the poor kids and receiving the gratitude of the other dinosaurs in the park for saving them from the deadly beast. And yes, there will be an item song thrown in, featuring Sunny Leone and some of the more talented velociraptors.

As you can see, this guy seems particularly enthusiastic about showing off his dancing skills in the blockbuster

Himesh Reshammiya – The film got shelved because the dinosaurs killed themselves when they realized that Himesh was producing, directing, writing, acting in and singing in the movie.

Me – As a bonus to all those who went through the entire piece, I took the liberty of penning down a script for this movie. The following people will play a major role in the movie. Salman Khan, Honey Singh, Rakhi Sawant, Rohit Shetty, Himesh Reshammiya, Justin Bieber, Ekta Kapoor and a carefully chosen list of characters who exhibit the following trait. They make us want to bang our heads against the wall until we lose the capacity to think and stoop to a level that will actually make us appreciate their talent. Anyway, these people will be sent to an island and will have to fight each other to the death (Hunger Games style) while being hunted by an assortment of carnivorous dinosaurs. The last man standing will be crowned as a champion but then, in a plot twist, straight out of a Martin Scorsese movie, just as the champion is celebrating, a T-Rex will jump out of nowhere and gobble him down. A happier ending I couldn’t imagine!

*In order to appease those guys from PETA, we shall be adding the following disclaimer: "No dinosaurs were harmed during the making of the movie unless you count the mental stress inflicted on them due to the presence of the director"

The Island

Image courtesy: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5513/9638208839_7b996907ab_z.jpg

It was a few hours past dawn but the sun had barely managed to make its presence felt on this island. The heavy fog roofed the trees and the interiors of the jungle were so deprived of light that it became nearly impossible to distinguish between day and night. Surrounded by the vast ocean, the island had somehow escaped the various explorations of modern civilization. The concept of time was unknown to its inhabitants. It was truly a lost world.

A man stumbled through the foliage. His lean muscular frame was covered in a crudely shaped material made from the skin of a tiger which he had killed. He carried a knife fashioned from a bone to defend himself against any attacks, from animals or otherwise. Just the previous week, he had lost someone very close to him. In circumstances he wanted to erase from his mind.

He came to the nearest tree and found it completely dry. He thought himself to be lucky considering the amount of rain they had received over the past few weeks. ‘Good’, he thought. He wouldn't have to travel far. It was his turn to gather wood. And today was a special day. There was a celebration planned. And he didn't want miss any of it. But the quantity of wood required would be more than usual. He had asked others to help him out but they were all needed by the elders to complete other jobs. Everyone was busy today. He pulled out his axe and started cutting the tree with incredibly powerful strokes. It was hard work. But the rewards at the end were great. When he was sure that the wood gathered would be sufficient enough by the cooks, he started making his way back, dragging the uneven branches wrapped securely in bundles of bright yellow, some of which still had a shiny plastic thing attached. He couldn't understand what it was meant for, other than making a shrill noise, which he had discovered purely by accident. ‘Maybe it could be used to call for help’, he thought and made a mental note to tell his elders once he returned. The drum beats started becoming louder as he neared back and he could make out the familiar scent of the feast being prepared. His stomach rumbled in response, and he realized how hungry he was.

The tribe stayed within the interiors of the island and was protected from all sides by wooden walls. There were also guards who carried spears made from animal bones, stationed every few meters along the walls.

The elders of the tribe started the celebration by offering prayers to the heavens. It had been a long time since the tribe had had such good fortune bestowed open them. In fact, it had been more than what they needed. But no one was complaining. They had all been through some bad times and if God chose to reward them bountifully, who were they to object.

The tribal chieftain known as K’ozuotu, signaled one of his underlings who understood what he had to do. As if in response, the drumbeats began to crescendo. The underling returned in a short while. He had carried out his chief’s orders. K’ozuotu made his way towards the center and the whole tribe started chanting. There was something beautiful yet terrible about the chants. It was as if something calamitous was about to happen. The youngest members of the tribe sensed this and some of them even started crying. But the chanting didn't stop. K’ozuoto reached the center and raised his hand. Silence fell upon the crowd. Even the crying vanished. But the silence was not complete. A whimper arose from the center and was amplified by the surrounding silence. No one moved a muscle. The chief of the tribe, the strongest of them all, sliced his hand through the air and there was a blood curdling shriek and the silence was absolute. K’ozuotu raised his hand back again. And the knife he held, one of the relics from the fortune, seemed like a natural extension to his body as blood dripped from the knife and ran in small rivulets along the length of his arm. The sacrifice was prepared and offered to the deity and the celebrations commenced. The feast had begun. As K’ozuotu sat at his seat with the other elders, waiting to be served by the helpers, he thanked the gods again and looked upon his tribe with a proud satisfaction. They would be feasting like this for many days to come.

At the same time, in a remote location in London, an old man unfurled his copy of the morning newspaper and immediately dropped the cup of steaming tea he was holding. Staring at him, typed in bold black font, was the headline;

“Commercial Flight Carrying 203 Passengers Disappears Near The Bermuda Triangle”

Words

Image courtesy: http://decora-chan.deviantart.com/art/Drawing-of-Words-137448777

“She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art was not supposed to look nice. It was supposed to make you feel something.” – Rainbow Rowell

She looked nice and she looked like art. This blend, magnified by the rarity of its occurrence, stirs up such feelings that mere words fail to do justice.

No one had incited such emotions in Michael until he met Lisa. They met each other through a common friend. Pretty soon, they started spending a lot of time together and, as is generally inevitable, started dating each other. Life was blissful for both of them. They spent days together and time held no meaning for either of them. The mundane problems of every relationship somehow stayed away from theirs.

Today was significant. One year of togetherness. But, that wasn't the only reason why.

Michael’s reflection stared at him from the full length mirror in his room. He was dressed in a brand new jacket that he had purchased recently. He wanted to look his best for her. He knew Lisa didn't care how he dressed but today was different. Their lives were about to change. This was the first time he was ever going to say those words to someone. He looked at the mirror and repeated them.

Lisa hadn't slept all night. The tempest of emotions raging in her mind was overwhelming. The significance of her thoughts weighed her down so much that she didn't even go to work that day. Evening drew closer and she wanted nothing more than to get ready and meet Michael. Her Michael.  Michael had forged a place for himself in her heart. She remembered meeting him for the first time. They hit it off immediately. Now that she thought about it, she couldn't even remember which friend of theirs had introduced them. She allowed herself a smile. And tonight, everything would change.

Both of them had decided to meet at their favorite restaurant, the place where they had their first date. Michael had suggested the venue and Lisa had immediately agreed, knowing that she would have made the same suggestion. It was amazing how their thoughts matched. Almost as if one knew what the other was about to say.

The restaurant had a rustic ambiance with an ingenious setting that managed the fine balance between limited space and the privacy of every table’s occupants. It was a fine place that served a variety of cuisines complemented with a meticulous assortment of wines. The music was subtle enough to ensure that even the softest of conversations could carry on without interruptions.

They reached at the same time and were sat at their table which had already been reserved by Michael. He gazed into her almond shaped eyes and for a second, forgot himself. Lisa’s beauty was unreserved and stemmed from her eyes. The delicate shyness about her face, her long dark hair which had been left untied and the gentle quivering of her lips made her seem angelic. Michael’s emotions resonated when he saw her. He prayed to the Almighty to give him the courage to say those words.

Lisa caught his gaze and looked into his eyes. She could almost feel the intensity of his emotions across the table. And she knew he would be feeling the same. She noticed that he had made a special effort to look good for her and she approved even though she thought it wasn't necessary. And he did look really nice today. His clean shaven face along with those eager brown eyes and smartly trimmed hair made him look especially handsome. She felt a certain calmness descend inside her as if the emotional storm had slowed down to a pleasant breeze.

They looked at each other and time held no meaning. The music, food, people and the restaurant faded into oblivion as their gazes seemed connected solely by the depth of their emotions. Neither of them wanted to let go of this beautiful silence and yet, just like it had always been, they let the words spill out at the same moment.

‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’

‘I want to break up’

Paranormal activity of the plastic kind

I don’t know why but I always manage to find myself in the middle of stuff like this. If nothing else, then it makes for good writing at least. I had seen the movie “Paranormal activity” a few weeks ago in the middle of a power outage at midnight. Since I was watching it with a couple of my room mates, we only suffered serious moments of fright towards the last quarter of the movie when the reclusive ghost finally decides to come out of his shell and socialize with the girl he had been haunting since her childhood and her unfortunate boyfriend. The ghost was surely not at blame here as he was just responding to the boyfriend’s efforts of communication which is very essential to maintain a healthy relationship and God knows the ghost and the girl had been having troubles since her childhood. However, the spirit can be at fault for maybe being a bit too aggressive and trying to possess the girl. That could be the cause for their relations to hit a ‘dead’ end. Anyways, I can safely say that usually I don’t watch horror movies because of the excessive wastage of fake blood and this one I watched because this movie’s scare to blood/gore ratio was maximum. A similar experience however happened to me recently and I am still behind the wall of sweet denial so would be narrating it as it happened in Ravi’s life.

It was a nice, cosy and cold night in Pune and the lights were dark in every apartment. Even the dogs had decided to take a break from their nightly orchestra. But something else had not.

Ravi was sleeping comfortably covered with his blanket and bed sheet oblivious to everything else around him. His room mate, Adi, who was soon to move out, was also asleep comfortably. Both of them were unaware of the 3^rd living entity present in their room. At 4:45 am, Aditya got up to switch off the fan as it had become very cold. The thing ignored him for the time being.

To those of you who might not know, the fan is an essential commodity for Ravi. Even if he is suffering from fever and it is a cold morning, he needs the fan to continue his sleep. Today was no different. His sleep was disturbed because of two factors – one of them being the fan while the other was the constant out of tune humming of mosquitoes near his ears. He checked the clock and realised he still had 2 hours left before he had to wake up. Suddenly he heard a noise. It came from the left near where Adi was asleep. First he thought that it might be Adi’s snores but this sound was different. Sounded like a plastic bag. That was puzzling since the fan was switched off and there was no wind also. Whatever it was seemed to be moving fast and coming toward him.

Scenes of Paranormal activity flashed through his mind sending shivers down his spine. Such scenes are the last thing one would want to think about especially in the dead of the night when the only thing that seems to be moving is you and that unknown thing in your room. He looked toward his legs and was scared that anytime now something would rush up and pull him by the feet toward the unknown darkness in the corridor beyond the door that was just a few feet away. He pulled up his feet into his bed sheet which suddenly seemed a lot smaller. However the noise seemed to have subsided and Ravi heaved a sigh of relief.

Suddenly it started again, this time very close to Ravi’s feet (Who knows why ghosts have been obsessed with feet!) and he was terrified beyond his wits. He was literally rooted to his bed. Finally mustering up some courage he got up and went near the source of the noise. It seemed to be coming from the plastic bag near his luggage which was strewn there. He went near the bag and picked up the bag as fast as they show in those Hollywood movies where the hero suspiciously picks up some suspicious stuff on a suspicious table in a suspicious place and finds … well… nothing suspicious at all.

In this case, Ravi saw a cockroach whose expression seemed to be a mixture of surprise and embarrassment like one of those fat people who have been put on a strict diet by their wives but have been caught by the same wife trying to steal food from the fridge in the middle of the night. For the record Ravi and the cockroach had not met each other any time earlier. For a minute, both of them looked at one another, unsure of what their next move should be. Barring the unearthly hour and the difference in species, the scenario seemed like the middle of the first date between two people(any gender would suffice nowadays) when all the niceties in the conversation have been exhausted and both of them are wondering what the opposite person’s next move would be. The cockroach was the first to recover and his first move was to run like his life depended on it. I guess it actually did. Ravi also, released from the minute long spell, ran after the cockroach, hell bent on teaching the arthropod a lesson for giving him the scare of his life, but then lost it within a second thanks to the combined effects of the pitch black darkness and him not wearing his thick glasses.

With no chance of finding the cockroach and no intention of going out in the dark corridor, Ravi lay down to sleep, all the while watching the door and wondering whether the movie was scarier or this incident was.

P.S.: All characters mentioned are real including the stray dogs and the cockroach.

P.P.S: In my opinion, this was scarier since I … I mean … he experienced it alone!!!

The Saas Bahu Saga – An in-depth Analysis

This project report has been made possible due to the daring effort by a field officer who sacrificed many hours of his life so that us lesser mortals could gather an understanding as to why the ‘K’ serials last for so many lifetimes while generations of humans fade away in –relatively speaking – a blink in ‘K’osmological time :D

Day 1: 2:58 PM

As I made my decision to embark upon this precarious mission, it dawned on me that no amount of preparation could have prepared me for the torture that was to follow in the next 30 minutes (Or was it half of my life!!??? I am still bemused!!).

As the first of my subjects was beginning, I realized that there was no advertisement between the end of one program and the start of the next (I had tuned in a bit early) which is an irony as my studies ahead will show. Most of the soaps begin with a lady guiding the camera around the house (an attempt to welcome the viewer into their humble home which is the first step towards your last step: P).

The serial began and I noticed the innumerable amount of characters it possessed – x grandparents, y great grandparents (At least one is older than 100 years of age), z sons, b daughters, n grand children and of course m enemies trying to ruin the family(What’s a soap without your ‘friendly’ neighbourhood vamp, eh!!) Surprisingly, no pets! (At least that was the case in the subjects of my choice) Maybe Menaka Gandhi put her foot down here! A bloodhound would cower in front of so many people. By the way did I mention that all variables are greater than 5??? And did I mention that there is only 1 servant in the overpopulated household to do the cooking, cleaning and other chores!!?? In these days of scarcity of helpers, cooks, servants etc most of us would kill to have such an efficient servant (I am pretty sure he has a degree in management).

Anyway, when I had finished comprehending the insane amount of characters and was listing down some observations, the first ad showed up. By the time, the insanity resumed, I had finished typing till the current line which goes a long way in describing the length of the advertisement and which also confirms my notion of an irony as mentioned earlier. What followed next was an incessant amount of scheming by the vamp, the schemes being foiled by the lead character (who is always a female- the males somehow never have enough brains for the detective work- Gender discrimination, anyone?) through some insanely brilliant thought work of which Holmes would have been proud of and of course, songs being played in the background -of movies in which the brother of the director has acted and finally, at least 3 or 4 more commercial breaks.

As the clock struck 3:30, the serial abruptly ended leaving the story poised at a “crucial” stage and the next serial started. However I knew I had had enough for today.

Day 2: Same time

My professors had said that I have a good aptitude for logic etc and Calculus and other seemingly tough topics in Math didn’t give me much of a problem. However, the 30 minutes of the saas bahu saga yesterday seemed much more difficult to comprehend than the integrals and differentials of various functions. Hell, theory of relativity would be much easier to understand. The soap started and for what happened next, please refer to the last 21 lines of notes of the previous day. Yes, not much changes except the vamp gets closer to implementing her plan and the female lead gets closer to foiling the same plan. It doesn’t take a genius to guess that the two will meet in the center (Imagine two trains traveling towards each other on the same track) and somehow the female lead will win the “battle”. One more thing I noticed today was the insane amount of money the families possessed. Their deals were always in hundreds of crores and tossing away a few crores like it was petty change (I wish they would give me one of those petty crores), yet none of them figure in the top 400 of the Forbes’ list of rich people. Anyways , that’s the progress I made today.

Day 3 onwards TILL date!!!!

Since the story seemed to progress like a 110 year old tortoise on a marathon, let me fast forward and report to you my findings till date

Observations

1. The breakdown of a normal(as if that word could be used here) 30 minute soap is as follows:

• 15 minutes of advertisements

• 5 minutes of special effects that include the drums in the background and capturing everyone’s reaction (from the grandparents to the family cockroach) which -considering the family population (a miniature China, if you must say)- is a small amount of time

• 5 minutes of the songs being played in the background.

• Finally the story progresses for 5 minutes

2. The families are obviously insanely rich yet the money never seems to be enough

3. The complexity of the serial varies from extremely complex to beyond understanding and I raise a toast to those people who watch these serials everyday as they must possess an extraordinary amount of brain power. I have a nagging feeling that Moore’s law is being upheld mainly because of the above mentioned people.

4. Last but surely not the least , the one reason why soaps maintain an extraordinary amount of duration – When the long drawn story seems to come to a conclusion, Take a generation jump and run the story again in an infinite loop!

The Lord of the flies...... ahem..... hives!!

Most of us been part of hostel life. It is inevitable that during the 4 years spent in a hostel, many incidents of varying degrees of humor and otherwise, are added to our archives. One such incident, after a small amount of reminiscing, comes to my idiosyncratic mind.

We were approaching the end of the fourth semester and thus had almost earned the tag of being “50% engineers” (That I managed to achieve a re in one of the subjects , thereby delaying my achievement of the same tag, is a totally different story :D). Anyways, without getting sidetracked, let me continue. Preparations for the exams had just begun (For the uninitiated, preparation for end semester exams in the hostel begins just about a week before the exams. You could say that may have been one of the reasons why I got a re and I will reply that don’t let me get sidetracked as that will cause a chain reaction of inquiries that will make Holmes proud).

Resuming our story, the three of us (me and my room mates) were grinning at each other with sadistic amusement at the formation of a beehive on the outside of the balcony door of one of our hostelmates (Yeah, we were a bunch of sadists) who lived just 3 doors away (I think you can guess where I am going with this). While the 3 of us went out to buy some books for the exams (Na aa aa! I am not going to be diverted again!!!), the aforementioned hostel mate called one of the mess workers to purge the beehive. Needless to say, the mess worker did so and with such efficiency that all the bees buzzed away and settled- not on the either of the adjoining rooms nor the trees just ahead, but, as we found out to our displeasure (which the bees obviously didn’t care about) when we retuned to our room – on our window which had been carelessly left open (the optimist in me did cry out that it was fate or destiny or whatever synonyms one may choose). So, there we were, the three of us, watching in disbelief as our whole room, not just the balcony, had been taken over by a colony of bees. That, my colleagues, was the reason why the Battle of Room 37 was fought!

We decided that we would fight till the very end to win back our room and thus began forming a battle plan for the next one hour. It was agreed upon that one of us would go inside to weather the initial storm and the other two would follow him within 15 minutes or when he gave a cry for help, whichever came sooner. For some reason, I was the Chosen One for the initial assault and was handed over my battle gear. So there I was, wearing a thick jacket, sports shoes and a Hero Honda helmet and holding a burning newspaper as two pairs of hands pushed me (rather forcefully, I might add) into the dark room no. 37. No sooner had I entered the room, the assault began. The bees attacked me from all sides and I am rather appalled at the thought of what would have happened had I not worn the helmet or the jacket. I attacked back with vengeance and many bees fell victim to the burning torch of revenge that I brandished. Still, the waves of assault from the enemy kept on coming; I was beginning to tire and starting to retreat.

Then came the moment that completely changed the course of the fight. Ashwin and Abhishek (my roomies), having seen that I couldn’t do much any longer, charged in with a cry that would have chilled the hearts of the bravest and strongest bees. Even I was reinvigorated and the three of us fought like we had never fought before. Paper burnt, bees fell, smoke filled the room and the battle continued. The wall suffered a lot as the three of us thrust our burning newspapers at the bees that were daring enough to remain on the walls. Time held no meaning for us as seconds turned to minutes and minutes to hours. We knew that we couldn’t afford to take any prisoners and we had to eliminate all entities that were few centimeters in size and had wings.

Eventually, a small group of around 20-25 bees, including the prized queen, was left and we knew that we had almost won back our territory. Only a small formality was left. Within a couple of gory minutes, we had tasted the sweet elixir of victory without suffering any casualties. With all the smoke, burnt pieces of paper and corpses, the room looked like the war field in Lord of the rings. The only difference was that Peter Jackson spent millions to create that set and we fought an actual battle for 2-3 hours.

And that was the day , the Lord of the Hives was born!