Did I like Pune better than Bangalore ?

I was in Pune a week before the Koregaon blast happened in February 2010. There’s one aspect about which I felt I liked Pune better than Bangalore.

If I am in Bangalore, I will have to really use my brains to decide in which language I should speak to which all people when I go out in the city. Sometimes it is a pain. For example, if I see someone local, say an auto driver who has this red,yellow Kannada Rajyotsava flag on his auto, I should decide to speak to him in Kannada, If I go to someone who looks North Indian like the pani puri vendors, construction workers or Marwari shop keepers I should speak to them in Hindi. If someone looks Muslim, I should talk in Urdu. There are quite a few people who only know Tamil or Telugu(Like in Andhra Mess and all), with them I should follow the sign language as I don’t understand those languages. If I happen to confront someone from North Karnataka then I should think if I should switch my accent to 'Enri Heng Adeeri Sir-a' one. If finally someone doesn’t belong to any of these categories then I should speak in the neutral language; that is, English.

But there is no such problem in Pune at all. Wow. You can be relaxed when you go out in the city. Everybody in the city whether he’s a small chaiwala or a car showroom owner or a CEO of a company follows and speaks Hindi. You can blindly go to anybody and communicate in Hindi. It’s so easy and hassle free. I wondered if Raj Thakre’s Marathi Manooos propaganda hasn’t affected these people yet. Anyway I had a blast going out in the city to do some shopping until the fateful blast happened. So sad.

Sorry Dad..

My father always used to say the following lines when he was alive. He believed in them till his last day.

“If you lose money, nothing is lost
If you lose health, something is lost
If you lose respect, everything is lost”!!

But I don’t agree with him actually. He was wrong. My belief is different.

About money, I do agree with him completely. Money is just a necessity.
About health, if it worsens, do not worry. You can still be happy. Just that don’t worsen it further. Having said that, after all every soul has to die someday.
About respect; Don’t be bothered. If people respect you or not, if your image is intact or spoiled, if people call you characterless or a saint should always be a non issue. Nothing can alter your happiness. Don’t live for people. Live for what you believe in (which should not hurt others but).

Hence my version of what is lost is different. Here it goes…

“If you lose money, nothing is lost
If you lose health, nothing is lost
If you lose respect, nothing is lost
But… If you lose PEACE OF MIND, everything is lost”!!

Sorry Dad…

3 Idiots – MNIK – Formula for successful movies

I may sound like the Most Wanted if I quote I know the formula for successful movies. Before all the movie producers flock my house, let me make it clear that these are just my views(right or wrong) and there’s nothing new I ‘am gonna say here.

We saw huge blockbusters like 3 idiots and MNIK. In today’s world, the reason that they became so successful was the fact that these movies have multiple messages in them. People go to multiplexes paying Rs. 350 or so and if they aren’t satisfied enough they feel cheated. But again nobody knows for sure what makes a movie run, it could be some magic that audience find in a movie if it doesn't have any message (Ishqiyan??)

Let me count the messages that 3 idiots gave

1) Aal izz well – It’s about hope. Never panic. Whatever problem you’re in, believe that everything will be fine someday

2) Excellence – Strive for excellence and not success

3) Friendship

Now let me list MNIK’s messages

1) Truthfulness, Innocence, goodness - Be good and say truth always. You will have your laugh at the end

2) Love – A person who can’t have feelings succumb to Mandira’s love and goes all out to gain it back. But in reality, does true love ever exist? (for that wait for my next blog)

3) Don’t generalize – Don’t brand any community as good or bad. There are only good people and bad people.

My best line from the movie is, when the TV reporter asks Khan about what kept him going in such a long journey, he replies confidently ‘my son Sam’s soccer shoes’ haha lol.

Well, having said all this, I feel MNIK is unrealistic. The thought of dividing people into good or bad is not correct because nobody is 100% good or 100% bad. Everybody have their own perspective to life. What I think is, there are two kind of people in this world. Problem creators and Problem resolvers !! And my appeal to everybody is, please try to be a problem resolver as much as you can. In that sense, I’m proud to be a service provider engineer.

Do you know any movie which had maximum messages? I feel it is a wonderful movie named ‘Khuda Ke Liye’, my all time favorite. It’s again based on Islamic world mainly. Very very apt movie.

I am not a great writer or something but the other day I had a nice idea on which a movie can be made. Planning to do some research on it and develop a movie script. It’s again about some syndrome. Only people whom I have told about this are Alpana, Sreedevi and Mathad. So, please wish me luck. Dharma productions, I am coming to you. Else Farhan Akhtar ?

Take care till I come up with a new blog. Please get back if I bore

The Three Musketeers – I love RSS – My Men

I can proudly say that, I am a true fan of the three men in the world. They are RSS. That is, Roger Federer, Shahrukh Khan and Sachin Tendulkar. In that order. I don’t think there is any need for me to give an intro about them.

The reasons that I love these three are pretty obvious. All these three come from a lower middle class background with literally no influential parents or god fathers. They have done enough justice to their talents and remained in the top position in their field for a long time(Remember, reaching the top position is very easy but remaining there for long is next to impossible. Best example: Himesh Reshammiya :-) lol)

I am glad and feel lucky that I am almost contemporary to my favorites, RSS. These days I am on cloud nine in fact. In the last few days, Roger won the Australian Open, Sachin scored three consecutive test centuries and Shahrukh ? Wow. I fell flat watching him in MNIK today. It’s not that it’s the best movie ever made but I am 100% sure it’s SRK’s career best acting ever(Earlier it was Devdaas I feel).

It’s not that I am a die hard, crazy fan of these three. If I happen to meet say, Roger in a flight, I wouldn’t yell and faint and all that. I would just shake hand and say ‘hey Roger, how are ya? All the best for the future tournaments". But the fact is, I would not mind 10 more breakups just to see Roger’s one (leaning forward) topspin forehand winner across the court. I wouldn’t mind 10 more breakups just to see SRK’s that innocent dimpled smile and I would certainly not mind undergoing 10 more breakups to see Sachin step out of the crease and loft the ball high over the ropes.
I think it’s fair that I should be called a true fan of RSS.

Now, unfortunately, I am not a fan of any woman. It doesn’t mean I don’t like women. No. In fact, I love them :-)

Hindi is not India’s National Language !

I love history. I love history for the sheer fact that it can be viewed from any angle and my eternal efforts would be to know the true history. I feel true history is nothing but the ‘Neutral History’. Generally the history that we study in schools and colleges is often colored with state propaganda. For example, if Jinnah is a villain in the Indian history, he is a demigod in the Pakistani history. It’s true for every nation. Even in American textbooks it is written as if America is the world.

Now coming back to the subject, 99% of Indians have this misconception that the national language of India is Hindi. Wrong. Fact is, the Indian national language is English. Shocked? But it’s true. Please read ahead.

While India was getting independence, there was a question before the parliament as to which language should be the national language of the Indian union. Indian Muslims spoke Urdu and Hindi was spoken by Hindus in BiMaRU states (Bi; Bihar, Ma: Madhya Pradesh, R:Rajasthan, U: UP).

There was voting done in the parliament to choose a national language. Urdu and Hindi tied with equal number of votes. Then it was decided by the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi that our national language would be Hindustani, a mix of Hindi and Urdu (no idea about the script). Hindustani is the language spoken by the masses and understood easily by one and all. It doesn’t have complex terminologies of Persian Urdu or Sankritized Hindi. The language used in the Hindi films is, Hindustani. In my opinion, Hindustani is the most sweetest language on the earth not just because it’s my mother tongue.

After this, in the mid 1947 hell broke loose. India divided and what followed was the most brutal massacres of all time. Lakhs of people were killed and made homeless. Since handful of Muslims remained in India, then the Indian leaders decided that Hindi, with the Devanagari script alone would be the national language of India.

Our then prime minister Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru was modern in his views. He was pro English. He made sure that the higher professional education like engineering and medicine remained in English so that Indians would get global recognition(because of this English, the Indian software industry boomed in the late 90s, else Chinese have any day better brains than Indians. Every year in the International Math Olympaids, majority of the gold medals are bagged by the Chinese and Taiwanese)

Now, since most of the south Indians didn’t know Hindi then, (C. Rajgopalchari and Ambedkar supported English) it was decided in 1950 that English would be the national official language for the next fifteen years till which efforts would be made to popularize Hindi across the nation. (this is as mentioned in the article 463 of the constitution) and Hindi was included in the schedule along with 17 other languages as the regional official languages. Now the list is increased to 26 I guess.

Then the government did many things to promote Hindi, like inclusion of the same in the civil services, central government bodies like defence forces, railways and also opened Hindi prachar sabhas in the south.

Things went fine until the Jan 26th of 1965. It was the day when English had completed its 15 years term and as promised, it was the time for Hindi to be declared the national language. Meanwhile Nehru had died the previous year. On 1965 26th Jan, Hindi was declared India’s sole national official language replacing English. Anti-Hindi riots broke out in Tamil Nadu and some parts of north eastern states. Soon the government realized that it’s impractical to impose Hindi as the national language. And within two weeks government reverted back to English. This has continued till this day.

Hence Hindi was made our national language for merely two weeks in 1965, other than that it’s just yet another regional language. But our teachers and textbooks are still an ignorant lot stating that Hindi is our ‘Rashtra Bhasha’. Fact is, Hindi was decided to be made Rashtra Bhasha but was never made. It's little known tfact that the USA doesn't have a national language because they don't want to disrespect the minorities who speak Spanish. If we apply that logic then for the next 1000 years Hindi can not become Indian National Language because of such mind boggling linguistic diversity in the Indian state. However Hindi has grown tremondously off late in South India, thanks to Bollywood. Hope someday, all the Indians would be able to communicate in both English and Hindi.

I again hope that let the ‘Neutral History’ prevail in the world.

Jan 26th. Happy Independence Day !!

Today is Jan 26th. And I take this opportunity to wish everybody a Happy Independence Day !! Yes, today is India’s Independence Day. Wait, before you brand me ‘An Ignorant’, please read the below lines.
Let’s travel back in time for a while. It was back on Jan 26th,1930 Lahore session that the then Congress president, Nehru unfurled the tricolor and declared India as a ‘Poorna Swaraj’. It was also decided that Jan 26th would be celebrated as India’s Independence Day. Indians celebrated 26th Jan as the Independence Day every year with great pride and nationalism until 1947 arrived.
When the British agreed to free India to keep their promise made to India as Indian troops had represented England in the Second World War. Every Indian leader wanted India to be given independence on Jan 26th(of may be 1948). But British chose August 15th to commemorate the second anniversary of the end of Second World War. This upset Indians though. For three years 1947,1948 and 1949 India celebrated both August 15th and Jan 26th as two Independence days. It was in 1950 Jan26th, that Indian union was declared a republic and rest, as they say is history.
Let’s discuss an interesting topic here. When India got independence, 99% of western scholars, journalists, intellectuals predicted that India would divide into pieces within few years. It was quite logical as well. India had such diverse population (even more diverse than the entire Europe put together). As far as I know, there is no country in the world which has more than one official language. But India has whopping 22. Let me tell you something
When I was in Atlanta, the US, I was working as a consultant for ING through our company. We were 40 plus Indians in that project. Among them we had a group of 10 friends. We always hanged out together, whether it’s for lunch, or movies or Saturday booze sessions (I mostly drank orange juice then).
We all used to wait restlessly for Saturday evenings and used to have a blast. I never thought about our origins then. But when I realize now, it makes me proud. Let me mention our gang’s diversity. I and Santhosh were kannadigas. Ramnathan and Karthik were Tamilians. Suresh was Andhra. Shanky was a Mumbaikar. Ghanshyam(my roomy) was Sindhi. Ayan was a Bihari. Varun Pratap singh was from UP and Sourav Ghosh, a Bengali. Sadly we didn’t have any maliyali. Yeah, Eldho(a maliyali) always helped us get our booze. We spoke in Hindi and the thought of we hailing from different states never crossed our minds. We always spoke about India as a nation and not different states. We referred ourselves as ‘Desis’. I miss them all now.
This is India after 60 years of being made a republic. It stands strong as a democratic secular nation (of course there are hiccups). The entire credit should go to Nehru mainly and Vallabbhai Patel and VP Menon. Else India would have become yet another Europe with many small nations. It’s not over yet. We need to carry India to a position as developed as Europe for sure. Insha allah ! If Gandhi were alive he would be proud to see our ING gang but he would have loathed our boozing activity for sure. Anyway, I again wish, a very Happy Independence Day ;-) See you soon, till then Chill Maadi ;-)

Chetan Bhagat, The Real Idiot !!

Dear Mr. Chetan Bhagat,

First of all I admit that I admire your writing. You are a talented, hugely popular writer and I have enjoyed reading your books especially ‘five point someone’ and ‘two states’(the other two looked average).

My sympathies to you for all the drama of the last week surrounding ‘3 Idiots’. Having said that I would like to say that the real idiot out of the controversy is none other than you ! Four years back when the 3 idiots team approached you, you were overwhelmed just by the fact that your book would be made into a movie by best of the lot featuring Shahrukh Khan(Eventually SRK opted out of the project and Amir got in). Then you didn’t care about the remuneration of selling the copy write of your book to Mr Vidhu Vinod Chopra(yet another Idiot). It was mere 11 lakh rupees. Now that when the movie is released and has created havoc at the box office, becoming the highest grosser ever earning 100s of crores, anyone in your place would have got a pinch of the proceedings. It must have pained you financially like hell.

But what made you an Idiot is your outcry in the media about you not getting credit bla bla bla. Come on. Grow up man. You don’t know whom are you taking on. These guys Chopra, Khan have been in the business over decades and they know the intricacies of the trade. Firstly, you being a noob(beginner) in the industry would not get any sympathy and secondly you need to get classes on how to handle the little success you got by writing. Being successful is easy but maintaining it is very very difficult especially if you are in the entertainment industry. You should control your inhibitions and act to be 100% politically correct even in your dreams if you wanna sustain your success. I wouldn’t mention any other name other than Mr SRK to be your mentor on how to handle success(not because I am his fan). Did you look at him how he behaved on the premier of 3 Idiots? He is supposed to be not in good terms with Mr. Chopra(remember Chopra-Farah Khan war because of which SRK opted out of 3 Idiots?) yet he hugged, kissed and wished Mr. Chopra. He also hugged his rival Amir Khan and wished him as if he is his closest buddy. That’s called being politically correct and no wonder why he is such a big super star in spite of his hits and flops. Good that you quickly apologized to Amir, fans etc else I was afraid you would have become one more Vivek oberoi.

It was a big lesson learnt for you. When you are at top, be extra careful before you utter a word in the press. Hope you wouldn’t do any such idiocracy in the future. Everything lies in your hands now, whether to become an other Shahrukh or an other Vivek. Good Luck. Happy new year !