Feeling "defeated" currently (refer: tag line of the title of my blog).

I think I write best when I'm furious. Such a pity my hands shake too much for me to type enough. Pity pity. Aunt Pittypat.

One more thing..

I don't understand why One puts on weight when One eats nice things. One has so much trouble in life. Sigh..poor One!

Aah..prawns..Oh Calcutta! Get chicken into business quickly though!

I realized recently just how bitter a person I have become. I don't know when I became like this old naggy woman who finds fault in everyone but herself, and criticizes everything around her, has no tolerance and voices loud, bitter, irritated opinions to anyone and everyone who is listening (or not). I've lost my enthusiam, my general air of happiness, and tolerance (to the point of indifference- now I think only core-level indifference remains). Worst thing, though it might superficial and trivial, is the change in speech. I sound so bitter now. I use harsh language, for friends, relatives, people in general, regardless of whether or not they've even said or done something to me.

I am also doing a lot of this. Skimming through life quickly, counting hours, minutes, simply waiting for things, days, weeks to get over. And get where? Reach at what? It's like living on the surface, refusing to settle into anything, just racing to get somewhere (I don't know where).

I've become really shady, I say.

Love in Hindi Cinema

First of all, I apologize for the rather ordinary title to this post. I’d much rather have put up something funkier and more eye-catching, but I am very sleepy, at work and rather brain-dead. So I’ll let the mundane prevail.

This is something that occurred to me while I was going to work one morning. I listen to the radio while going and coming back, and flip through channels rather swiftly (much to the agony of my driver- should I say chauffeur or ‘the person who controls my vehicle’ for the benefit of all the Marxist-Socialist-politically correct-opposed to demeaning terms like driver and servant- types?- anyhow you get the point, for he is rather possessive about the music system in the car). And I realized that the sound track of the movie ‘Taare Zameen Par’ is very, very popular. No matter how much I surf, it’s playing on one station or the other. It got me thinking about how refreshing a non-love theme in a movie can be. And how nice it is once in a while to not hear a song praising the lips or hair or eyes of some woman, or making promises of undying, faithful afflictions.

As a disclaimer, I am not trying to eulogize movies which address socially sensitive concepts, or ‘arty-farty’ movies. In fact, I don’t consider myself much of an authority on the subject of movies in the first place. For that, you should talk to some of my friends, who can spend hours painstakingly educating you on anything and everything about movies. I just enjoy watching movies for the time that I am watching them, like them or dislike them, and in all probability forget salient features about the movie, no matter how much I’ve liked pretty soon. All I am commenting on is that it is simply so fresh and new to see something other than the standard love story on celluloid.

I have been wondering why the concept of love is so popular with Hindi Cinema. Every movie, almost, in the commercial stream has a love-story at its centre. Even movies which are working on another them have an ancillary love story. It seems like Indian film-makers don’t have much else to talk about, or are aware that nothing else will sell as much. You have the poor boy falling for the rich girl, fighting social odds and evens, overcoming all possible problems and goons her father sends, and finally, managing to marry her. Or you have the rich guy fooling around with the poor girl, dumping her, and coming back to her at the end of three hours. A preliminary question I want to raise about the depiction of love in these movies is, how do the actors know it’s “love”? How can they be so sure after a chance meeting on the train, or a sighting from the balcony or a bit of a fight in a shopping mall? From the little experience that I’ve had with love or its cousins, I don’t think it is so easy to determine when it is the right thing- when it is ‘that’ which is worth eloping for. Anyhow, like I said, this is simply a preliminary query, and I digress from the main focus of this post. Coming back, why is it that there’s a love story at the heart or on the surface, or (most often) all through a Hindi movie?

I’m not sure it is the correct answer, but I think the monotony of the theme can be linked to the fact that ours is not a particularly permissive society. Harmless flirting, serious courting, falling in love, marrying someone of your choice, telling your parents you’re in ‘love’ are all things which most Indian families would (or did, hopefully!) regard as bordering blasphemous. Maybe an era of restrictive society, backdoor romances, sly courtings, rare elopings gave rise to a population which seeks solace in love and romance being portrayed on the big screen, in being given hope that despite their own boring, middle-class existence where they go home to the same wife and whining, there is spring and beauty and blossoms in this world. Perhaps, Indian cinema with its focus on the theme of love has given room and image to the imagination of thousands of Indians who never dared to think outside the arranged marriage regime. Most of all, I think it presents an escape route into a world of dream-girls who are otherwise unattainable, and whose existence is in fact, not even taken too seriously; into a world very different from theirs, where even a 9 to 5 office-going clerk can have splashes of colour thrown in by some pretty damsel on the bus stop.

That’s the reason I can think of for the obsessive-compulsive love filmmaking we have. Can you think of something else? But filmmakers, a plea to you- it does get boring and monotonous after a while. Please do a rethink, while our parents are (again hopefully :)) doing one.

This isn't the promised post on 'Love'. That'll come up soon.

Me.

That blog almost has as many posts as this one. But then, two can write more than one, obviously.

Though that makes me sad somehow. The look of my dashboard. Like I've been neglecting this one. Like I've been neglecting myself?

I realized I've never posted anything on love. Hmm..'Love'.

I will, some day. I think.

Goodnight. And thank you. Now I can cry.

This isn't about that. This isn't about anything. Just a feeling. It'll go away. Quickly, I hope. Thanks for introducing me to the fine print.

Circa 2008

We've always prided ourself over being an educated family. This isn't to say we aren't. Most people in my family are quite well-educated. And last night, on 25/1/2008, my cousin called off his engagement. Which was scheduled for 27/1/2008. Because suddenly, he decided that the girl wasn't good enough for him.

I don't want to make him out to sound like such a villain. In fact, I don't think it's his fault, in a manner of speaking. Marriage in my household is such an obsessive family decision, there is an immense pressure on every single kid to prove that we're obedient children, who will do whatever our parents ask us to do blindly. And interestingly enough, most of us do, when it comes to marriage. But I digress.

The facts are as follows:My cousin told his parents that he'd be okay with marrying any girl they chose, he had no preferences whatsoever. His praises were being sung loud and clear everywhere, even in my house, for being such good boy, for being the sort who completely trusted his parents and so on. Around the 15th of this month, my uncle and his wife (yeah, my aunt, I suppose) met the girl and his family. They approved, and said yes for the wedding. They decided that the engagement would take place on the 27th of January. Then suddenly, a bit of fear crept into my uncle's mind, and he inserted a clause saying that everything would be subject to my cousin and his sister approving. My cousin flew down from Delhi, and he and his sister met the girl on 22nd. Noone said anything. Everything was going smoothly. He said he was cool with the marriage. As did his sister. Clothes shopping and all is happening.

And then, on the night of the 25th, my cousin was looking really upset. His sister and mother asked him what happened. After some coaxing, he said he did not like the girl. She didn't seem 'smart' enough for him. After which even his sister said she'd felt the same way, and that she'd held her tongue because he hadn't said anything. And then, when my uncle tried persuading him a bit, he started crying and said that if they wanted to force him into it, it was fine. So the engagement was called off. The girl's father and uncle begged my uncle and aunt to tell them the reason. You know what's appalling (if all this already isn't!)- my aunt told them that they'd at least told them before the engagement, and that they had given them enough time. She did not have any remorse in her voice.

A lot of questions come to my mind. Firstly, if you've chosen to play the role of the obedient son, why did you not stick with it till the end? If you had preferences, why didn't you declare them to your parents when they were looking for a bride? Let's not even go into the subjective analysis of what he said. Not 'smart' enough leaves me with way to many stones to throw at him. But most importantly, it's a question of principles. If you've said yes, how can you go back on your word? I completely understand and appreciate that whatever problem you have should be declared before marriage, and much better late than never. Also, it'd probably have been more disastrous for a girl to walk into a house where people thought badly of her after marriage. But even so, couldn't he express his views on the 22nd, when he saw her? It would've been cleaner then.

It's the most pathetic thing I've heard to have happened in some time now. And I'm really disgusted and ashamed it has happened in my family. I never thought a cousin of mine, in the year 2008, would treat a girl like a commodity to be selected or rejected even after having given his word as if she was some grocery he was buying and suddenly changed his mind about. I cannot even begin to imagine what she or her family is going through. It breaks my heart more so that my cousin's sister and his mother, being women in Indian society, having borne the brunt of how the girl child and the question of their wedding is treated like, could have been party to something like this. They are all turning around and criticizing the girl today, saying she was indeed not up to the mark.

In any case, I'll stop now. I don't know what to say, really. I know I'll never be able to communicate it to the girl or his family, but I convey my deepest apologies to them. I cannot believe someone in my family has done this. And I wish I didn't have members like this in my family. May they never be forgiven.

And I hope they remember, what goes around comes around.

Mooting should be illegal. As should internships. Work, work, more fucking work.