That I Would Be Good

Aamir Khan's Ghajini is out in theatres and me and my friends religiously got a first day first show ticket.

I happen to be a self proclaimed movie buff and most of the times i have some comments about the movies i watch.

This time too , as the movie unfolded , i had 5 words shouting inside my mind.

Surprisingly there was an NDTV crew waiting outside the hall to get comments from viewers. I passed by them, unnoticed. Offcourse, comments from a pack of pretty girls makes more sense for a news show. But if they had approached me, i would have said those 5 words straight to them.

" Whats with all the Negativity"

This is all that caught my mind after the film. Somehow it happened to overshadow the immaculate performance of Aamir khan , potraying the lovelorn/hunky short term memory loss guy, and one of the most crisp performances in recent times by a female lead in hindi movies (Asin).

All i went home with was a troubled heart and mind, thinking, where are we going with these kinda movies.

Movies which give so much importance to the villain that they are in fact named after them.
Movies which show a man gone crazy , killing everyone in his way , to avenge his love's death.
Movies that tell us, muscles and blood is the answer when someone does wrong to you.
Movies that show a man giving away info about two girls to goons , just for a mere 10 bucks.
Movies that in a nutshell tell us - Somebody scratched you, well then you gotta scratch back.

This somehow disturbs me.

Ghajini is going to be the most watched movie of the year , and what message does it give to the millions of people.We are talking about the same people who are currently battling through tough times of economic crisis , mounting prices, terrorist attacks and what not.

Is this what the hundreds of relatives who have lost their loved ones in the mumbai terrorist attack do ?

Hunt down hungrily the terrorists and kill them , also killing many more in the process.

When mr. Aamir khan, probably the most admired, respected and sought after personality , whom a lot of us look as an idol in terms of perfection , meaningful and thoughtfull cinema puts out this kind of message, it is really gonna go deeper than just a movie.

Also lets look at another recent widely watched movie, The Dark Knight.

It is supposed to be a movie where a superhero saves the people from The Joker.

What The Dark Knight has ended up doing, to a large extent, is celebrate this insane Joker character. Just notice the hoardes of people who have "The Joker" as their avataar in online forums and the anormous popularity of The Joker wallpapers , and you will believe me.

It idolises this perfect villain who has nothing to lose, who doesnt want money, who kills for fun and who doesnt kill his arch enemy, The Batman even when he has a chance, just because he likes fighting him.He loves the chaos and the anarchy.

Doesnt this joker sound somewhat similar to the mumbai attack terrorists? The terrorists too had absolutely nothing to lose. Their sole goal was to kill as many people as they could. They had no ransom demands, no demands about releasing their comrades, not even a plan to get out safe after the attack.

To all us who are affected by this negative media swarming around us , i would like to remind ourselves of some other great learnings which we have learned in the past, from movies itself.

Gandhigiri, though the concept was aprreciated and even practiced by some, its time we revisited those ideas.

There are many more reasons to smile, many more reasons to help others, many more reasons for hope. We just probably have to dig deeper.

If theres dark around us , theres light too. If theres Black , there is white too. And its upto us how we mix this black and white and form a grey , depending on our own understandings and sentiments.

I would leave this decision to the readers, ending by adding the video of a song and quoting my favourite lines

that I would be good even if I lost sanity that I would be good whether with or without you

That I Would Be Good - Alanis Morissette

That I would be good even if I did nothing
That I would be good even if I got the thumbs down
That I would be good if I got and stayed sick
That I would be good even if I gained ten pounds

That I would be fine even even if I went bankrupt
That I would be good if I lost my hair and my youth
That I would be great if I was no longer queen
That I would be grand if I was not all knowing

That I would be loved even when I numb myself
That I would be good even when I am overwhelmed
That I would be loved even when I was fuming
That I would be good even if I was clingy

That I would be good even if I lost sanity
That I would be good
Whether with or without you

Short Story

On a sultry Bangalore afternoon, A boarded a shared cab to reach office.

Minutes later, B joined in. A helped B close the door.B said "thanks".

A smiled.

B sat facing A at the back of the Tata Sumo Cab.

B dug into his pocket and started taking the blue wrapper of a 5 Rupees Dairy Milk.

The shiny substance caught A's eye. A thought to himself : "I was nice to him, hopefully he'll share the chocolate".

He didn't.

A saw him throw the blue wrapper through the window.A's eyes followed the wrapper on the road , as the cab raced ahead of the lone-blue-wrapper lying on the road.

The gold wrapper was still left on the chocolate. B passed the final obstacle before he could enjoy the small bar of happiness.

B was about to throw it out same way. Right then , something struck in A's mind and he lurched forward and said, "Can you give the wrapper to me? I ll throw it in a dustbin when i find one."

Both A and B stood frozen for a moment, finding it hard to believe what just happened.

A though a smile would help, so he smiled.

B kept the wrapper in his pocket, and went ahead with his chocolate.

A spent the rest of the ride thinking about writing this blog and how this small incident has made him more motivated towards keeping his city clean.

How about you ?

Pearl Valley

I normally don’t write any blogs, but something inside me just ticked on the way back from Pearl Valley and I gotta write this one.

Well its 15^th Aug, 2008 today , India’s 61^st Independence Day and it coming up on a Friday happened to conjure up a THREE DAY weekend for the software folk, leading to put that immense pressure on me and my friends to do something “useful” in these three God gifted days. So we planned a one day trip to a place called “Pearl Valley” which happens to be just 40 odd kms. from Bangalore ( 37kms from BTM to be precise).

So here we have , eight guys with four bikes looking for that one day non-alcoholic high.Lazy as we are, we started 2 hours late than planned – around noon and reached crisply by 1.30 . The map is utterly simple , just follow the Bannerghatta road till you reach Bannerghatta National Park , and after that follow the instructions from the lovely people staying in the outskirts . They will lead you and they will lead you right. Best way to go is riding your bike or car, believe me – half the fun is cruising through the green country-like outskirts of Bangalore, with the wind in your hair and your leg on the throttle. The road leading you is generously smooth , with lots of strategically placed potholes and speed breakers reminding you : “Buddy, you are in India !!“.

The bike ride was made a pleasure by the awesome “Bangalore Weather” and picturesque outskirts. Though one cannot miss luxury townships, nature retreats and farmhouses mushrooming along the way. Also there is one very-Main Hoon Na-like exatravagent school coming up : Sarladevi Birla Vidyalaya (I hope I got the name right) - Worth a gasp. All these developments gently reminding you that the silicon valley is spreading its arms. Its green all through the way though. Towards the end we came across two barricades demanding rather forceful donations for some Ganesh Festival. We ended up giving in some generous bucks saying “Ganapathi Bappa , Morya”. Pure example of the immaculate Indian Spirit – Looting money in the name of God.

You will know you have reached Pearl Valley when you drive up to a restaurant called “Mayura”. Yes that’s all that meets your eye at first, but let me tell you this small restaurant has its own charm. It has an open portion on the edge of the cliff , onlooking the valley and the view is great. The place could cater to most of your needs , as long as they are feasible considering the place ; a good collection of spirits is also available. We ended up having a heavy snack before our trek. Surprisingly the heavy snack turned to cost us more than a full lunch afterwards. But then , we do have the ability to have inhuman portions of food sometimes.

Coming to the Pearly Valley itself, well there is a lot of disappointment for the non-adventurous folk here. Some 50 Stairs lead you down to a Water fall which is supposed to be the main attraction here. Now , we went in middle of monsoon and anyone would expect a good waterfall with some “Water”. All we got was an abysmal stream , which most of us did bet could be powered by the restroom from the Mayura restaurant above. For many people , Pearl Valley ends here as they sit around the rocks stuffing themselves with rice and beer.

The young and adventurous few , like us , go ahead into the green, finding roads to nowhere. All we did was select a hill and then find a way to get up there through the greens. One goal leads to another one and you could go on for as long you have the muscle. Lots of thorny plants could be only the possible spoilsport , also it does get a little damp at some places so mind

your steps. We really did enjoy basking in the euphoria of our conquest when we got up there. Also the fresh cool breeze was sure a great treat for our traffic jam affected lungs. The only wildlife we came across was a two meter long snake skin and some very interesting insects.

We returned to base camp – Mayura Restaurant after a Three hour exhilarating trek. Lunch was again a treat , food being nothing exceptional, just that the place and hungry tummys made it what it was. Also , there were some hungry

monkeys ( I am not referring to me and my friends) waiting to be fed by us. A very basic experiment led us to derive that monkeys are in-fact vegetarians. Yes, as lame as it sounds, its real fun t

o rediscover basic laws of nature – try remembering the first time you lit a matchstick.

Post lunch we started our ride back home , fearing the rains. The ride back was a bit quicker. The speed was same , the time taken was almost same , just that the excitement had died down. All through our trip , the weather was like it was going to rain any minute. Thankfully all day it didn’t. But then just when were about to reach home, It rained.

Another special thing I saw was, that all through our way all the cabs, rickshaws, trucks and busses kept us reminding that it was 15^th August that day. The Independence day had almost all vehicles on our way here sporting The Tricolour with pride and that

led us to do some innovative Flag Hoisting ourself. For the record,

I would like to admit that though I loathe the people of south India to be so fanatic about several things, be it their language or the film stars, I was really inspired by the amazing display of zest for celebrating this day. This was our small attempt to level the people here.

Overall , Pearl Valley was a really memorable experience. Its close , its simple ,

its natural and the best thing about it is, its your little outing, make it what you wanna make it.