Out of Time

I want to keep this short and mortal. And by the time this article dies, I hope the words will be happy to have served their purpose. If I am asked to put ideas down in a tweet for the last time in my life, those will the best 140 characters I have ever known, won’t they?

If you ask me, smart work is not the reason people outperform hard workers in a given time frame. And even if it is, it is not the sole reason for success. Unless one cuts corners to succeed faster and we call that smarter, there is something awfully wrong with this entire philosophy. And what is wrong, is the TIME FRAME.

Maybe it is not true that smarter people finish things faster in short time. It is because time is short that they are forced to operate within it and finish faster. It is mortality which ensures there is meaning to the time spent. Of course, this is the origin of deadline-based operations. Everything that we do has a deadline, some put down overtly and others not. We can choose to brush our teeth starting sunrise and take it to sunset. We can stay in the bathtub forever. But we are forced to come out not because we are bored of it, but we have other things to do – maybe but not necessarily, better things.

Speaking of time frames and deadlines, it is all too obvious that it is one of the best ways to get work done. But does shorter time to turnaround work well than longer ones? The answer quite unfortunately could be yes! We tend to be more productive if it is mandatory shorter work hours, shorter weeks. Research says that a 4-day week is equally or more productive than the current trend of 5-day/6-day work weeks. In sport too, T20 cricket opened up the possibilities of scoring 200+ in 20 overs and in the process, unorthodox, innovative stroke play came into being. Tighter, crisper and entertaining screenplays have proven to work well for movies because it pushes the film maker to show the best in every frame. 

All of us work so frenetically hard, not just because we want to make a livelihood, but also because there is a fear of death somewhere deep within.  And that death could strike any moment makes us push our limits and live life fully. I am not sure if we would work this hard if we were immortal. Absolutely no pressure whatsoever! Now, that is like a client asking you a solution giving no expected date of delivery. That is like us walking into a cinema knowing it would never get over. Unless we want to experience it fully, we are more likely to sleep in such a scenario. Yes, SLEEP. And sleeping after revelation-esque knowledge of immortality is itself like a breathing coma.

Having tighter time frames might sometimes encourage compromising on quality of output because timeliness pips quality in such a universe. In the end, imagine the deadline being extended by a couple of days after we deliver. This time, we would make sure it is high quality. It would be evolved. It would be more than what our client wanted. It is the same feeling you get after you die and your soul gets the knowledge that it is going to be in the world again. Surprise, surprise!

Disclaimer: Just a bunch of words. The deeper you dig, the shallower it shall seem :)

Hang my boots? Only for a new pair!

A senior leader in my organisation caught me off guard when she asked if HR will be my career forever since I had graduated from a top HR management school. I have been thinking ever since if there is an ounce of truth to the phenomenon of inner calling. And even if there is a call from the inside, should we pay heed? And if we heeded and chose a path, should we journey along it for the rest of our lives?

So where, does a career end - when you grow old in the job/ when you have reached the pinnacle / when you are no more doing your best in the job?

It would be sadistic of me to make you read the entire post to get what my opinion would be. Our career in something ends when we are no longer useful to the world doing that 'something'. Since the jobs we do also feed us, we are most times tempted to believe that they are for our own good. We may be passionate about the career we finally choose to pursue but when the world does not derive value out of our existence, we quite have not justified the existence itself. Scary thought, really.

When pursuing a career, we should ask ourselves these questions -

1. Am I doing this only because I am passionate about it?
2. Is there still somebody in need of my services (is there a market for me) ?

For instance, I gave up public singing because I did not see the crowd being entertained anymore. Although I had good reviews for a few shows I performed early up, I could no longer do what I loved because that is not what others loved. I gave up table-tennis because I ended up runners-up thrice in a row in regional tournaments. I did my share of fighting but could not just carry on because no one got entertained except me. All said, we should exercise caution and not give up on things so easily.

Sometimes in life, the warrior in us fights for so long that it becomes hard to admit failure and walk back all the way to the point of divergence of the roads. Maybe we are simply scared to start small again. Maybe we are pleased being an average failure than a trifling success. I do not know.

One thing to be aware of when we persist and try to make a career is the time lost in the process. Thomas Edison would disagree with me. He had his share of failures and he finally succeeded. But when he did, it was a revolution in the field of science. It was a lifetime achievement. If everyone in this world waits for a breakthrough that would have their names in the history books, are we wasting time in the pursuit of one big game-changer? My feeling is that we should do small things, thick and fast without aiming for a breakthrough. If you are failing enough in something, it is perhaps time to move on and try something new. Failures are not stepping stones to success, rather are stepping stones to trying out newer options and success lies in one of those options.

Our power and skill lies in deciding when to give up on an option. The power and grit to go back to the drawing board. And the power to decide when to sacrifice a domain of interest for something with a better possibility of impact. But sacrifice is a different matter altogether. It would mean trade-offs for the greater good. But in this case, also comes an opportunity to learn and contribute in more ways than one to the world in the one big lifetime we have got.

If the career ladder is not taking us upstairs, maybe it is time to try The career jungle gym. If we cannot make the heights, we can at least go the distance.

When the feet feel the sand...

'Sometimes in life we sprint so far and fast until we realise it is a marathon whose end is never in sight' 

              Marcus Trescothick, Shaun Tait, Michael Yardy are cases of stress related burnout fresh in cricketing memory but there are many of us who are flirting with the borderline everyday. Thankfully, we get breaks from work in the form of lunches and coffees and of course, weekends.The final straw which triggered this post was Jonathan Trott's pulling out from the Ashes midway owing to stress related illness. Given the passion these guys have for the game, given the time they have spent with the bat and ball and given the amount of patience and tranquility that a player like Trotters has shown in his batting, it is quite surprising that they get depressed and burnt out.

These are not the only gentlemen in the gentleman's game who have complained of stress. There are many others who talk about it everyday and many more who break down during farewell speeches confessing how hard it has been. However, there is simply no questioning their love for the game.

But the question is - Are stress related burnouts common in places where passion meets profession?

The adage 'Too much of a thing is never too good' holds some part of the answer to our question.

Passion or not,the same thing done over longer time leads to boredom while quite paradoxically, it is about handling boredom that passion is all about. Is it the only cause for a burnout? Hardly. Prolonged periods of time away from home, prolonged periods of under-performance, prolonged periods of sustaining the top ranking and prolonged periods of anything can lead to a burnout. The watchword here is 'prolonged'. Long enough to get bored.

Too early but I would like to challenge my line of thought. Stress does not need years to burn you out. It may take just weeks or sometimes days, to reach the threshold. In more ways than one, the inevitable burnout is a blessing in disguise. It is the first point of realisation that something has been wrong with us all the while. It's the time of revelation that we have been fighting our inner demons and struggling in the battle. This realisation might take its own time - a hard two weeks of work or years of miserable passion. I call it a blessing because it is the point where you take a deep breath and start to swim towards the shore. And when you reach it, you will be ready to dive in and swim again. The hope leading us to the shore will help the rehabilitation and get us ready again when the feet feel the sand.

But boredom may not be the only culprit. The added pressure of keeping one's place - in a sports team, in a tournament, in a business-makes things worse and only hastens the arrival of the eventuality. It will be simplistic to conclude because of the diverse factors that cause a burnout. But for now, the remedy seems to be a break - from all sweat and toil.

I would love your help to make a sequel to this post with your questions and views. 

Yours fashionably,

It is interesting how we are ever quick in taking sides and making conclusive statements.

A few examples. The very same people who were singing praises of Nitish Kumar when he became the Bihar CM are now posting videos of his hypocrisy. I am confused on who is really hypocritical here. Bashing a certain Gandhi or Modi on their alleged wrongdoings, worshiping the latter for his developmental agenda, we always have loved taking sides – to read just the headline and mock the Madras HC on the ‘premarital sex’ verdict or read the case facts fully and interpret it in its context; want Sachin to retire or want him to play on forever; Take SRK’s movie promo as offensive or take it as a light-hearted dig.

I am not sure if it is meaningful to call ourselves liberal in our views if we are so impatient to resort to extremes of the continuum of conclusions. Of course, no one is going to guillotine us for not choosing a side. Are we doing it because a certain opinion is in vogue?

Even if we do it because it is fashionable, out of the blue comes another person with a counter-view in the extreme and a brigade to follow her. We probably have to learn to ignore these issues or even when compelled to make an opinion, it might not be a bad idea to say, “Well, I have to think about it!” J We are not being indecisive or less affirmative by doing this. It is okay to battle it within us to remain suspended in a state of doubt than to express an extreme viewpoint closing all options and making it easier for the world to classify and label us.

Disclaimer: Just a bunch of words. The deeper you dig, the shallower it shall seem J

I am not Them

There needs to be a wave of change. A serious campaign sweeping across continents against stereotyping! Well, just joking :D Negative stereotyping hampers the well-being of an individual. The positive version can bring a civilization down. Choose an Engineer for instance, from a premier college in South India or anywhere in the world, to lead a vital infrastructure project as his/her first. This could be a catastrophic decision if it is based on positive stereotyping.

We get into the trap of assuming and labelling people we meet, because it is convenient to do so. Yes, it is a trap of convenience which makes us lazier. Lazier to think and come to a conclusion. Lazier to make a judgement after investigation based on behavior or historical evidence. Even judgements based on past evidences would be naïve but let’s take for now that we can’t help that if we are to behave in a certain way with that person. We are lazy to think at all. I do not want us to play Sherlock Holmes to deduce the personality of the individual. All that needs to be understood is that we are better ignorant than holding false opinion about other people. What we should not take for granted is the projection of group characteristics on to an individual. Yes, it has been researched upon that a person would have cultural, social identities in addition to the individual identity. But is it right to assume so is what we need to ask ourselves.

The human race itself has certain characteristics which are common but when an alien assumes a sample human would think and respond in a particular fashion, he is wrong. He might be dealing with a cannibal or a serial killer. That humans eat one another for breakfast, lunch and dinner and humans are cold at heart certainly would be disastrous conclusions the alien guy might make. Yes, these are aberrations in the species and when aberrations are more and more, it is best to take ourselves one at a time.

It is much easier to take things together, then classify them based on common traits and study. Makes our job easier in studying other species. What about our own? Let’s leave the right and wrong part of it aside for now. We do not deal or communicate with Class Amphibia or Class Pisces so much as we do with Species Homo sapiens. In fact we do not need them for survival as much as we need ourselves. Hence it becomes important to understand each of us specifically than attribute group characteristics to individuals. Because of what is at stake. 

For instance, in communal or political riots, who is the revenge taken on? Thousands of innocent people die because the other thousand thought they could play avengers. Here we do not see the fight of a few people originally involved. It slowly becomes a clash of ideologies. Now, the revenge is no more targeted on individuals. This is a serious mistake. If we do not change, human race could be the price we pay for it. Until we confirm being the sole thinking beings in the Universe, Us would mean mankind and not any race, religion, caste or creed. Let patriotism mean being proud of world citizenship. Whoopsie! it is starting to sound like a peace sermon.  

I do not wish to conclude this piece in a solid style. Even if I did, I do not want to be judged based on what I write. I did not touch upon positive stereotypes much only because it maybe causing lesser harm. Again, this is an assumption! I can be proud. I may feel sad. I am us and not them.

Disclaimer: Just another bunch of words. The deeper you dig, the shallower it might seem :)

The O.B.E Encounters

                    "We are the best suited to fight the Demons we create"

In this section, I would like to share my nights of what we call an OBE - an Out-of-Body Experience. Also known as Sleep Paralysis(SP) by some, this is outright scary. Experts say OBE paralyses you in sleep but not all episodes of SP are OBE. The key difference between the two is the 'something' that happens outside of you when you are sleeping.

Night 2: Living in a house of strangers is an experience in itself for certain. And if one of the strangers is a concoction of alcoholism, craziness and character disorder, it makes living adventurously interesting. Make no mistake, I am not attributing my 'episode' to bad circumstances this man created. All I want to say is that almost every sleep after his entry into the house was disturbed one way or the other. He would talk gibberish loud enough for you to mistake it to be foreign language; bang on his own door for reasons best known to him; and wail once in a while after hitting against the wall. Sometimes this itself was scary, leave the OBE aside.

One night I hear these all over again but I realised later that I was fast asleep. I laughed with a malignant baritone, so loud that it would drive him away or scare him at least. Instead I lay there on my bed staring straight at the ceiling fan, laughing my head off until I fell 'asleep' again. 

Night 1: This was probably the first time I got an OBE but with no knowledge of what it was. Something held me so tight that I wanted to escape it and cry out loud. Cry because I had an accompanying dream which showed scenes of my grandmother's passing and people who came together to mourn the same. You won't believe me. The very next day, I receive a phone call of the news that she breathed her last. And when I went for the funeral, it was like deja vu. A tingling sensation through my body told that I had been there before. In the dream. 

Night 3: This was a characteristic OBE. I am deeper than ever in sleep and suddenly I see a terrifying demon-like figure walking towards me from the open door of the bedroom. Try as I may, I could not get out of the goddamn quilt. I was aiming to hit the demon and get out of the window (5th floor of the building !). But the figure came closer and closer I could see it. I could see everything clearly in the room. It sat on my chest and held my head with my cheek pressed hard against the pillow. I could not turn! After much effort, pain and determination I wake up "physically". 

I woke up in the morning to research about this and came across the term OBE for the first time. What I found would be helpful for others experiencing those horrifying nights as well.

Do not panic! Acknowledge that you cannot move because you are physically asleep. Once you master this awareness, it would be easy. But this is not easy as it sounds. More than half the trouble is because we are so desperate to prove that we can move because our conscious self is scared that we are paralysed! If this is taken care of, then the experience allegedly becomes an enjoyable outing. 

A little effort in analysing shows that all the narrated instances have a cause. I have always wanted to shout at this madman for disturbing everyone asleep. I have always loved my grand mum and was scared of losing her almost everyday after she fell ill. And I was working real hard and sleep deprived during an Internship.

I have tried deliberately to get into an OBE after these incidents but hardly do they happen out of will. And when they happen, I still struggle but at least I don't try to move anymore. Instead,  I allow the unreal 'me' to fight the demon. 

Disclaimer: If you had same/similar experiences, don't blame me for spying on your dreams :) Instead,  please feel free to share your OBEs too.

Mutant Monkeys, are we?

      “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist”

A Russian billionaire is planning to create Cyborgs out of human brains by 2045. While he works on his Magnum opus, let’s show time what quality means, Yeah!! Is Brain the same thing as Mind and whether it is actually different from what we call ‘Heart’ (not Mr. Heart, CEO, Circulatory system)

Freud introduces 3 gentlemen who create further chaos-Id, Ego and Super-ego. Are these separate from who you are? Can your Ego exist in someone else? Even if my brain is to go into the head of the Cyborg, will that creature behave like me? Will the combination of the three aforementioned entities create an altogether different personality in that cyborg? If the answer is yes, then I am different from this entity.

Our Super-ego, what religion probably calls an Angel, is making you act in morally best ways. Id is pleasure seeking and can be destructive. Our Ego manages both. So is Ego-our Heart, our Conscience, our Mind which is conscious of the good and bad in us? Try as we may, we can never see ourselves different from our Ego. The scary truth may be that I am not my mind, contrary to the popular philosophy that your thought is your existence. 

Sample this now- My brain rationalises (whoops, dangerous assumption boy!) and hence Brain is the Ego we are talking about when making logical decisions. We often say we listen to our Heart when making decisions based on emotion. This is because we perceive the heart to be the life giver, pumping blood day in, day out to all organs. Without it, even the brain can go dry and die. Once that happens, what happens to us?  C’mon we are not dead yet, we are just brain-dead, okay! But do we exist, Yes, we do. So who’s dead? Mr. Mind?

      "The greatest con the Ego ever did was making you believe he was You!” (anon)

Okay, damn Freud, damn the heart, damn the brain, damn the mind. Ok, don’t damn Freud completely, because I need him to hypothesize – What if there was just the Ego and the Super-ego? Oh, wait. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honour now to announce the merger of Id and Ego. Now, we now have two different people – Ego and You (Super-Ego). We've always had just two, yes? – Good/Bad, Positive/Negative, Day/Night, Mom/Dad (oh, this is crazy!). Now don’t be surprised that you are indeed morally good within J.In life, we only agree or disagree with the Ego but never let it rule us. A gentleman of the 6^th century said that the greatest battle was always with your own mind. And it will be.

So, what differentiates us from animals? - Definitely, not the social behaviour. They have fun too-they emote, play around with community friends, go mad over enemies, fall in love and do everything else we do. But..but..but..They don’t dress up! :D Silly as it may sound, they do not really invent things and develop lifestyle as quick as we have done. So are we just Mutant Monkeys who think a little better with each passing generation?

Disclaimer: As always, just a random bunch of words. Don’t dig deep ‘cause it will only get shallower as you do J

We Were Young !

Hi there Ladies and Gentlemen who were Boys and Girls years back, No one travels faster than light, so let's slow down a bit and talk. Please :)

We need to stop feeling as if we got to see the best things and subsequent generations shall be missing them. The things that you enjoyed once, changed because they had to. The producers got bored of making the same things over and again and so did the consumers. Cartoon network was good when you were a kid, not just because you had Swat Kats, Captain Planet, Jonny Quest and Tintin running on it! It was because you were A KID. Period

The same logic applies to why you love(d) gully cricket, video games, WWF (and to some extent WWE). Thanks to our never-quenching thirst to watch the same things we used to, even The Undertaker is tired of making comebacks!

Now that you have grown up, you see something’s changed on CN and you want to badly relive those times. And you hate CN for that? Mind you, the target audience has changed its preference. The current school goer still loves it – from Ben10 to Power Rangers, Bheem to Doraemon. Naseeruddin Shah or Akshay Kumar, NSYNC or Metallica, there is a market for everything. People like Moony Deol (of course, first name changed) make action movies till date not because they are bored or they feel the need to register their purses for a weight loss program. They simply sense the existence of an audience for their movies. Why should they miss the profit bus just because their reach is not as wide?

The bottomline is that we do not miss those ‘things’. C’mon, will we watch the aforementioned cartoon series if telecast now? Maybe sporadically but the truth is that we want to watch those things when we are back home from school with mom-made fruit juice in hand. So what do we miss? We know the answer J

Disclaimer: Offensive or Not, I do not mean anything written in any of the posts in this blog. They are just a bunch of words to be read for fun J

No Light, No Tunnel !

There is something interesting about the world and we are very much part of the thing that makes it interesting. No one travels faster than light, so let’s slow down a bit and talk if that is okay J

What is the real purpose of life? The answer is like sets of earphones lying on the table. You try to pick them up in haste and you end up spending the longest time in understanding the intertwined mess. We have to spot the loose ends and take it from there so patiently that it is worth the effort and time.

Well, in my opinion, there is no real purpose in life. So what do we do when there is nothing to live for? We invent a purpose and work towards fulfilling it. That is the root cause of the rise of different faiths and philosophies. This is why we debate all life to decide the best philosophy.

God ('G' since He, oops, G is neither male nor female ) like everything else on earth is equally confusing. Had G come down to earth once or showed Himself up in the giant Imax screen that the sky is and showed clear signs that G exists, at least once since the beginning of time, the scenario would have been much different. Instead, He left it to the imagination of the human species to figure out What created them! How cruel! Adding to this confusion is the list of people who lived amongst us giving unclear messages. That is exactly why we require something like a miracle from these fellas to confirm their superior rank. Each faith has defined its own purpose of life. We fear the Unknown and become Believers. If we did not believe in G, it would be a lawless world. It is lawless anyway. At least, we are better off than Beliebers (Justin Bieber fans!)

Life's purpose is to create a purpose and add meaning to it by living it fully. We have a lifetime to think about it :)

Punter, I Bet

As he walked onto the field in what could possibly be his last test match in the subcontinent, Ricky Ponting was welcomed with a reverberating boo in Bangalore. India has always been the final frontier for most captains from Down Under. Two of Australia’s greatest captains, Ponting and Waugh never managed to beat the Indians at home even with the ‘Invincibles’ they had under them. It took a stand-by skipper in Adam Gilchrist to conquer India in Ricky’s absence. So difficult are the conditions here in the subcontinent where the placid wickets start turning on the last two days of the Test; the crowd starts appealing with the team and there is a drama every now and then; all these happen all of a sudden!

Ponting may not be gifted with the charisma of Waugh and has always been a brat in the cricket world. With his characteristic back-lift, he keeps you guessing about the stroke every time which is a huge gamble in itself. He took over the mantle from Waugh amidst much criticism since Shane Warne was always seen as the rightful heir to the throne. Warne, as former greats put it, may be the greatest captain Australia never had, but after Waugh, the choice became blurry since Warne was clouded with controversies at the time. Enter Punter!

Captaincy is an art in team games, more so in cricket not only because of the complexity of the decisions involved but also their retrospection. And to gauge Ponting, his career should be seen as Before and After Captaincy. Ponting the batsman, started aggressively similar to other predominant front-foot players of the era. He was the quintessential boyish brat needed in a team of mid-aged bullies. Due to the late blooming of his career in the fading 90s and the last decade, comparisons with other greats like Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar were inevitable. But just as the debate started, Ponting’s role in the team changed.

To Ricky, captaincy came by chance and his leadership till date is debatable. Yet, for the record, he is the most successful test captain of all time with more number of test wins than Stephen Waugh’s Invincibles. Though Ponting enjoyed the luxury of the services of his star-rated colleagues for the first few years of captaincy, eventually he had to be prepared for large-scale retirement. Everyone who retired hence, left as an all-time great, be it Hayden-Langer (One of the best opening pairs ever) or Shane Warne or Glenn McGrath. Even the solid Damien Martyn retired saying he was unhappy with CA. Ponting and the selectors were left with the task of finding the right players (don’t say replacements) for those open positions. Till date, those places have changed hands except for that of Ponting’s No.3. The fact that Shane Watson is still opening in Tests says it all. In fact the two Phils (Hughes and Jacques) are waiting for a long time since their injury recovery to retain their opening spots now being held by Katich and Watson. Perhaps, Watto is the John O’Shea of Australian Cricket who can bat at all positions, provided he is fit.

The great responsibility in Ponting’s hands is to do a Border and groom this bunch of youngsters. He has to do a repeat of what Border did to a budding Aussie side of spirited cricketers like Steve Waugh, Mark Taylor and Craig McDermott and what Taylor himself did to the Waughs, McGrath, Bevan and the like. And to still bat the way he does in the midst of this Herculean task, is truly commendable. He is never comparable with a Brian Lara or a Sachin Tendulkar who have been on and off in their leadership citing personal failures with the bat. Moreover, he is one among very few old-schoolers who do not sport any guard more than a helmet and mandatory pads and still plays the hook shot in a Test Match.

Standards of Australian cricket are predefined since it all started in the 19^th century and job security is a primary concern with most Australian players, leave alone captains. Steve Waugh who is considered as the best captain by even fans of opponent sides, was axed by the selectors from the one-day team. It is very obvious that each spot in the team cannot be taken for granted and Ponting’s is no different. His proposed successor Michael Clarke, who has been waiting, much like Prince Charles waiting for the Queen to .., you know what, does not have the aggressive approach to his batting that Ricky has.

Amidst all these, he still bats better than most of the others in the team though his hey-days are much beyond over. Age still has to take over this spilt-over cricketer of the previous generation. How many 35-year olds do you still see at point and extra-cover? He is still agile enough and can still pull off those Jonty-only superman run-outs and catches. He was second only to Jonty when he was there. He may still be hated by many fans across for regular indulgences in heated exchanges but that is what he is made of. Of late, the younger generation of players around the world is getting involved in quite a few ungentlemanly altercations, all too unnecessary. Aggression is a different art. As Matthew Hayden once said, “ Sledging is a tribute to a batter’s greatness and conveys that the fielding team fears him staying in the pitch for long. Only if he’s respected, he’s sledged.”

Don’t we miss the McGrath glare every delivery? Don’t we want Curtley Ambrose to call Waugh again for a fist fight? Don’t we still watch repeats of Venkatesh Prasad castling Sohail out soon after a mockery? Test cricket needs such drama and Ponting is very much part of it.

As he walks back one last time into the Aussie dressing room, he will join his mates as a pensioner. Also will be gone, the aggression and the art of delivering verbal volleys that he inherited from the mates of his generation. He may well be last of the breed. Bravo Punter!

Asli Superstar!!!

Let me put it straight. The man is Salman Khan and I dedicate this article to him and all his crazy fans who go gaga every time a movie releases. Besides, I would review the recent phenomenon called Dabangg though it is almost a month since the movie released.

Super-stardom is not about being a great actor and a thespian of the Dilip Kumar mould and winning recognition from the government for service to cinema. That’s pure professional honor; more of a pat in the back saying ‘Good job mate. You’ve done great’. Sachcha superstar is the one who may not be a role model for fellow actors but definitely an idol among the masses! When I say masses, it’s means the aam junta of our country, more so of our subcontinent. It doesn’t include the pretenders who question logic in every frame of a typical Indian movie. And what’s wrong in being truly Indian or a South Asian for that matter? These pretenders, watch the movie with the very intention of not enjoying it! The brains of these people are pirated as much as the movies they watch. They go by what the critics say. They read half the story before spending on a movie and lose half the fun. They never identify the critics as a bunch of jokers paid to review every frame of the movie. One who is very tough enough and gives 2/5 for an extremely enjoyable movie is viewed upon as a great critic. It’s all a self-conspired, self-inflicted ignorance of the way this country grew up.

We always have had a superhero and larger-than life character throughout history saving us from the bad guys starting from the mythological days of the Hindu deities, the Asokas, the Akbars right down to Mahatma Gandhi. Though we know it’s a collective effort, does anyone ever dare to question the logic behind history or the mythological special effects? We simply believe in heroism for the reason it existed.

And today we stand, discriminating people as masses and classes based on a movie. It’s derogatory to use such terms which signal as if the masses are no-brainers. The only difference I find is that masses are happy cheering a movie and the self-proclaimed classes wipes its tears after the movie saying ‘What a movie! A masterpiece’. I agree with them to some extent because the masses never fail to appreciate a good art movie when it comes by. They are not one-sided unlike the urban public who don’t even talk about mass-hero movies as if it’s way below their quality of life. They either watch it in pirated disks without the ambience of a cinema (single-screens, synonymous with the rural!) or they are ready to add to the multiplex collections of a bollywood movie shot entirely in New York and can make you cry for the money you paid!

I move to Dabangg now, the hidden agenda behind this post. Such movies have truly become rare in Bollywood. When did you last see people in plexes dancing and whistling? When did you last see public going wild over the intro-scene of the hero and each and every dialogue he mouths? In fact it all ended long back with Amitabh Bachchan. And it returns now and then in the form of Salman Khan in Tere Naam, Garv, Wanted and Dabangg to remind the locals that all is not lost when it comes to the desi flavor. What’s so special in the dialogue from Sholay- Kitne aadmi the? Just three words remembered even now. Where were the baaps of today’s plex audience then? They watched it and enjoyed it too.

Salman Khan is no great actor yet commands one of the biggest domestic fan bases. He is just himself in his movies. People see his persona and not the character. Who else can deliver one of the biggest blockbusters in Dabangg with a debutante co-star, producer and a director? He had failed his fans with multi-starrers in recent times but has proved time and again that people want him to be at his maddest best in his movies. As he says ‘ Bharosa, himmat aur taaqat bhi hai…aur paagalpan-hadh se zyaada!’

Today’s youngistaan is trying to act smart in sync with technology and standard of living. Being ourselves is no harm. Do we have our own style of movie making? This is it! Welcome to the genre of entertainment!

A Dream a night, an Idea for life

I have been following Christopher Nolan’s Inception for almost an year and my expectations were building up into a huge mountain. Not many movies have that honor because I follow only my hero Salman Khan! I was at home when Inception released and my family was busy preparing to move to another city. I was caught in the web too that I had to refuse two tickets for the movie and get a shopping voucher instead when I won a quiz on radio. My brother too was interested in the movie and he was the first to tell me of it. But we missed!

My next chance was when I came to Bangalore on July 19 and I grabbed it with both hands. I watched it all alone in the cinema and boy! I was mighty impressed! Chris Nolan had not only lived upto the mountainous expectation I had, but also scaled the peak! The reason I was fascinated by the movie even when it was in the making was because of the Idea of the movie. I have always been amazed by the things that I have dreamt in sleep. My brother is no different. We have had many a chat during our schooling days about the reality itself being a dream. I also have the habit of building on dreams by continuing the broken dream of the previous night. I have done that with good ease with great success. That is why I don’t see a difference between the so-called real world and the dream. The philosophy is simple: there is no such thing as a dream. Everything is real in its own world. It’s just that the rules are different. That might sound a bit insane but we believed and still believe in that.

But Nolan went a step ahead and built the idea of sharing another person’s dream space and planting an idea in the subconscious. Now, who would have thought about that and more so, a gripping plot! Nolan is a master of both. It didn’t seem fiction to me. As the movie was unfolding itself before me, I was shocked to find the proximity of my philosophy to that of Nolan’s. In the end, it was not only a great movie but one of the best experiences I had. For those who have not watched it yet, watch it alone. It doesn’t need the debate or clarification (with friends) it demands in the climax. It just wants to plant the idea in your subconscious that Nolan has given you another giant Jigsaw puzzle to work out till the next movie. Inception is how you read it!

Will the real Fan please stand up?

No matter how hard we try to avoid, the IPL invites interesting comparisons with club championship counterparts in other sports around the world. It is very much different from even domestic T20s of England and Australia, leave alone other sports. It's not the gameplay which is different, but the fan psyche,club loyalty in particular.

One of the biggest reasons why the IPL teams will find it hard to find a strong fan base is that the fans of regional teams simply do not exist. The Ranji teams playing to empty stands is proof enough for that. Even a home team victory in this trophy will go unnoticed by the fans. The only people watching these matches are the selectors, if at all they do. In fact, the newspapers next morning would give them a more interesting analysis of the performance than the stats gotten from watching the matches live!

Cricket fans in Asia and for that matter, the world, have been brought up watching intense games featuring their countrymen, be it the battle for the Urn or the cross-border pseudo-war between India and Pakistan. It is too early to expect a fan in India to boo off a fellow player just because he plays against his city's IPL franchise. Sample this with fans of Manchester United or Real Madrid who will not mind stepping onto the field and knocking the opponent's defenders off. In football or basketball, it's the club passion which drives the game; loyalty would be an understatement. Unfortunately, in the IPL we don't even have that.

People of Jaipur will still want Sachin to remind Shane Warne of the Sharjah nightmares of the previous decade, although Warne captains their team. And it's a known fan pulse that most IPL followers in India support the Mumbai Indians since their demi-God is the captain. Or are they of the opinion that the team has more Indianness associated with it because of the peculiar name?!

In this regard, Kolkata is a clear exception which takes a step forward, to fan frenzy. And all for one man - Sourav Chandidas 'Dada' Ganguly. Their desperation is such that they want one of these four names to appear on the back of one of the player jerseys. Otherwise, their rule is simple - Cheer for the opponent! This was evident in a critical South Africa-India encounter where Eden fans cheered for the Proteas because Dada was dropped for the match. Strange enough fan behavior!

For the purists, the commercialization of the sport is annoying. Even more annoying is the fans cheering every time the leather hits the ropes without bothering the bat from where it is dispatched.It is not that the people in the subcontinent are boundary-hungry. In all these years of cricket, they have witnessed only that in these flat batter-friendly tracks and are wanting only more of ball-bashing.

Lalit Modi said he wants to make iconic teams with global following like MU, Real and Ferrari, out of the IPL. I personally feel that he needs to do that in India before targeting a global fan base.

On a lighter note, it's good that the Ambanis bought Mumbai and christened it 'Mumbai Indians',and not Balasaheb. Otherwise it would have been Mumbai (only for) Marathas!

Disclaimer: Any resemblance to existing states of India or real life characters is purely coincidental and meant for a lighter read :)

What do you Think ?

The great species of the thinkers of the ancient and the medieval ages can be found only in history books. Times have changed and so is the perspective of what we think. From our own topics of interest to the weirdest of topics, we think every time we 'think'. Great thinkers don't just think; They spend time for thinking.

The supposed modern age has given us little time to think. So, in the given leisure hours of life, what do we think or, do we think at all? Many have questioned the fruitfulness of thinking because of the little gains we get out of that. There are times when we don't get any fame for our thoughts. Has the human species lost touch? Or has the breed of thinkers become extinct? Or has the new world considered thinking a waste of time?

Great thinkers like Aristotle and Plato were master strategists as well and had their influence over some of the greatest conquerors this planet has seen. They taught them how to think; how to fight mentally; how to wage a war. Thought itself, was a science. They did not create a warrior who can just fight. They created a mind which can master its own and a million others. That's why they ruled. Wonder how they got into the history books? Read the above line again!

Yes, there are modern thinkers who author many books on ways of improvement of the self and strategies to tackle life. But the real philosophy is often forgotten. Today, a man gets a Ph.D for his extensive research on a subject but is he really a Doctor of 'Philosophy'. He just finished adding icing upon the intellectual knowledge he already had. Today's thinkers will be known only to those who are researching philosophy and human psychology, because they study books authored by these thinkers to finish their exams and pass out.

We never found out what it takes to be a thinker whose name can live the ages like those B.C thinkers. Remembering them for around thousand odd years is no joke. Whether we can have a repeat of history purely depends on the way we look at thinkers of today. They don't just look at the ceiling fan for hours, they think much beyond that.