3 Idiots: A Critical Review

“3 Idiots” has hit the screens and is rocking all across the globe. Aamir has done the miracle once again and the movie is bound to break all preceding records. So far so good. The movie has been widely applauded by audience and even by the critics and managed to bag 5 stars in its cart. Most of my friends watched it and acknowledged it as “ultimate”

As far as I am concerned, I think the movie had all the prerequisite masala of a hit movie. It was humorous, it was emotional and above all the message of the movie was loud and clear – “Focus on inculcating and improvising skills rather than following success blindly” and Aamir emphasized this burning issue over and over again.

Unfortunately, I had the pre set image of “5 Point someone” in my mind and perhaps because of that, I found the movie rather disappointing. Let me entail them all in brief:

1. Movie was more about an extra ordinary, Nobel Prize winning material Rancho rather than the story of 3 usual guys with down to earth possessions. Just like Shahrukh projects himself as God in nearly all his movies and hence is rarely considered a great actor by male audience; Aamir khan too did the same and followed suit. Rancho was humorous (while other 2 weren’t), he was a rare prodigy with tech genius (while other 2 weren’t), he was clear in his goals and approach and expert in wooing (while other 2 weren’t) and the list is long

2. Friendship is all about equality where there is no need to say sorry or thank you. But here I found that Farhan and Raju were so obliged that they even went to the extent of going naked to express gratitude. We all have seen what happens in engineering colleges and how close friends come with each other, but have we ever gone naked just to say thank you to some of our friend? That scene is a blemish on the definition of friendship. Who sings a song like “udti patang sa tha who, kahan gaya use dhundho”. Each line of this song will make you realize as if Rancho wasn’t Farhan’s friend but Godfather.

3. The feel of young, innocent, and in this case naughty, romance was missing. Rancho was never interested in love while in original novel he was. So the purity of fresh love that was there in the novel wasn’t there in the movie. Infact the romance depicted in the novel is so realistic.

4. Novel’s novelty is its inherent rush, rush of a young student studying in IIT. The story in novel never gets lethargic and keeps your mind at toes. While the movie was so much focused on highlighting the God Aamir that that rush was missing and to me, movie was a bit sluggish

5. Greatest flaw of the movie was that it was too predictable. I knew that the newly born infant would kick and hence breathe only after someone says “All iz well”. I could envisage that Phunsukh Wangdu is Rancho himself. Similarly, Lobo will commit suicide was quite apparent. For all those who have read the novel, perhaps every scene was palpable.
6. Alterations from the original novel were super boring. Rancho being a fraud and hence once again highlighting Rancho as “poor yet great” was a sort of overdose. The relic-Kalash-being-flushed was another predictable scene. Ladakh school concept was good, but where is the story of engineering life, lives of 3 friends together? Projecting ViruS as a strict teacher is well and good but out of the way eccentric was difficult to digest, hence I failed to co-relate though I hail from the most notorious faculty of this country –Mechanical, ITBHU

7. The feel of a typical hostel life was missing. How assignments are copied at last night, how students fail to co operate but then collage to share, how a student feels raw and fresh after he leaves his home for the first time and how boys spend days and nights talking over same things over and over again – Girls and Professors. That touch was missing, just by portraying extreme cases of ragging and pissing you cannot aver of having showcased the hostel life. “5 point someone” is definitely better in this regard

I would overlook other flaws like 45 year old playing the role of 18 year old engineering student just by the virtue of makeup. In fact to me, it appeared as if the direction is not up to the mark, finishing touch and polishing was only 80% in spite of expected 100%.

Though I must confess that these views are totally personal and observations made above are my personal right.

Shameless Smokers

For a better comprehension of the post ahead, readers need to acknowledge the fact that I neither smoke nor drink. In this post, I would be talking about smokers in particular and drinkers in general.

Gone are the days when one used to value the importance of austerity in life and even thought of being a teetotaler. When I entered my first year in college, I too recognized the fact that youths love enjoying life without feeling any ethical reservations. But, anyways, respect of individuality is what I appreciate and follow. Infact many a times, I myself encourage my friends to drink/smoke to enjoy the limited valuable years of bachelor life and bust the sullen ambience surrounding one’s aura

But anyways, appropriate reciprocating response is always absent as is expected by persons similar to me. Just mentioning them in brief:

1. Smokers never give a damn to the fact that their smoking is passive smoking for others. Many a times they pretend as if they care but that is mostly due to the market value of the person concerned and in long run, the real face gets often revealed. Worst scenario arises when the smoker is your roomie’s friend. In this particular case, he won’t even inquire regarding your personal choices and inconveniences.

2. Greatest emotional attyachar is when you go to some place and they offer to have some sweet/paan/soft drink etc together which you deny due to various reasons. Instantly they would also say no their whim. This solidarity pledge often sounds ridiculous. When you had to drink/smoke, you left us all and did merry making/partying with your similar friends and didn’t give a shit to the fact that I am alone, but now all of a sudden, this momentary expression of love sounds confusing.

3. Smokers/drinkers would always pretend that they have finally got some elixir and now they are having best of their time in some self imagined heaven and treat the non-smokers as sullen beings fed up with their lives. God knows why the hell they feel that they are the only gifted and the happy lads.

Personally I have also seen that smokers have a restricted gamut while selecting friends, they always look for friends with similar interests. While a non- smoker is always open to friends of any type. Hence, I have experienced that smoking habits block you from getting fresh friends and ideas

I hope my friends with similar interests would be having pretty similar experiences

My head bows for them and all the resident respect in my heart emanates for those only who manage to keep the values taught by their parents alive, in this naked professional world. They are the real fighters of adversities in life

P.S. This is my first unedited post

Patna: The 25th City

I consider myself to be extremely lucky that tons of opportunities always approached me without hesitation when it comes to Having India Tour and roving some of the great Indian cities. This weekend, I would be having a visit to Patna, the 25^th city that I managed to stopover till now, out of which, almost 22-23 cities were visited in last 4 years alone

Just to commemorate this supposedly big achievement of mine, I have tried coming up with a list of all the 25 cities that I have witnessed so far.

1. Lucknow: My hometown

2. Varanasi: Lived for 4 years as my alma mater ITBHU is an integral part of this world’s oldest city.

3. New Delhi: Visited Lotus temple, Palika Bazar, Badarpur, Metro stations etc

4. Noida and Ghaziabad: Visited malls just

5. Surat: Visited ONGC plant along with beaches, malls

6. Ahmedabad: Visited IIM Ahmedabad, Satellite centre

7. Mumbai: Visited Elephanta caves, Fashion street, Siddhi vinayak temple, mahalaxmi temple, Hazi ali dargah, Marine drive, Juhu, chaupati, Gateway of India, BARC

8. Pune: Visited Central Mall, Tata Motors, Thermax

9. Bangalore: Visited Garuda Mall, National Science Museum, HAL

10. Goa: Visited Kalingute beach, Anjuna beach and other similar beaches, St Xavier’s church

11. Lonavala and Khandala

12. Jammu: Visited Vaishno Devi

13. Chandigarh and Ambala: Visited Mansa Devi temple, Bhakhra Dam, Naina Devi temple

14. Agra: Do I need to disclose?

15. Gorakhpur and Kushinagar: Grandma’s home, Visited shrines of Kushinagar related to Lord Buddha

16. Bhagalpur: My parent EDC in NTPC. Still staying at this place

17. Kolkata: Visited Victoria memorial, Dakshineshwar Kali temple and various malls

18. Vindhyachal: Visited the temple as well as Viddham waterfall

19. Renukoot: Visited Hindalco, Birla Temple

20. Kanpur: Visited IIT Kanpur

21. Allahabad: Visited Sangam, Hanging Bridge

22. Guwahati: Visited IIT Guwahati and Kamakhya Temple

23. Rudrapur: Visited Honda Siel plant

24. Nainital: Visited all picturesque places

25. Patna: To give my CAT paper

2 Birthdays Together and The Real Good News!!!!

For past many days, I had been putting the status of “2 birthdays together” at GTalk and other such places. Everyone kept asking the story behind it, today is high time that I should reveal the mystery behind it.

31^st October is my birth date and very fortunately my nephew got born on the same day itself. Not only was the day same, but other factors such as time in hours are also same as we both were born at 8 o’ clock in the morning. So very luckily, we share the same Sunshine and Kundali as well. So it’s like mayank getting reborn again, as everyone says.

So far we have named him as Jhatpat lal, as he came in this world a month before the scheduled date. Here I would like to mention that though doctors had given the date of 25^th November, I was having this intuition that perhaps the lucky date would be my birth date only, and by God’s grace, he got born on the same day.

Aaj Rahul Ne Kya Kiya ???

Indian politics has perennially been obsessed with the term Gandhi. Gandhiian dynasty post independence has predominantly ruled India as their own cultivation, forced ill-treated Indian junta to fallaciously fantasize a fancy that Kashmir borders stretch as shown in 50 paisa maps while conceding to continual threats of China/Pakistan, defying self only acknowledged theory of Panchsheel, under the pretext of non violence and hence projecting India as big girl’s blouse. The purportedly prescient Congress, that always opposed birth based casteism, prophesied century’s greatest precognition by introducing portentous reservations – new discrepancy to end old disparity. Indian junta - Habitual of pursuing a leader, was brainwashed to believe that Nehru (Father of POK) and Indira (Mother of emergency) took India to world’s centre stage. Remarkably none of them was chosen because of his/her leadership abilities. Nehru was biased against Sardar Vallabh as he was the most favorite disciple of Mahatma Gandhi. Indira Gandhi wasn’t the best party worker available to Congress. Obviously when one is born in a family as royal as hers, she would get plenty of opportunities to convince general public and henceforth prove that her candidature is the mandate of Indian public. This entire drama is played with the help of media. Next to join this league of extra ordinary politicians is Mr. Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Gandhi was a born introvert and the early deaths of his grandmother and father made his life traumatic at a premature age. He was very shy in his college as well and was talented enough to graduate from Trinity College (he failed in one of the subjects though). He wasn’t interested in joining politics but always had dreams of a developed India. How he decided to join politics is still a debatable issue but perhaps the plight of Indian politics or the mandate of congress party workers, made him change his mind. We know all this either by calculation or by virtue of media coverage. Once Rahul decided to join and decided to put forth his candidature, this coverage saw exponential increase. If one looks at past editions of any newspaper, one can easily tell when Rahul ate sweet at a dalit’s residence, when he spoke first in public or Lok Sabha, when he decided to step down as minister and when he decided to give himself some more time. Many a times it came to my mind that instead of scripting small columns speckled here and there at newspaper’s visage, newspaper should commence a devoted column titled “Aaj Rahul ne kya kiya”.

Surprisingly, I don’t know any of such detail about the daughters of Advani or Pawar. I admire media for the way it gave public a chance to look into the tragic lives of Rahul and Priyanka. But I know many persons who lost their parents in childhood and henceforth fought not only with fate but with poverty as well while Rahul remained under the aegis of his royal family. So who is more of a leader and more educated? Is it Rahul or the common middle class man? Here media instead of looking for unique abilities, put forth Rahul as a cultured educated youth based on most prevalent virtues. If these facts alone make him eligible for PM candidature then 99 % of the Indian masses deserve to be PM. A common man fights with the hardships to give proper education/food to his family. Who is tougher? I feel Middle class youths should take pride in hardships they face every other moment; they are no less than Mr Rahul.

Rahul’s coyness and vision has always been highlighted. It sounds astonishing that at a point where the media should have condemned him for the lack of leadership aptitude, it always treated him as if he is in some ‘How to be a PM’ classroom and would improve in next to no time. Rahul was always the undeclared PM of media. No wonders why they gave so much coverage to his first speech in Lok Sabha as if Indian politics was waiting for his speech alone. Several other MPs give their first speech every other day, then why this preferential treatment? Introversion should have made him an ideal husband but definitely not the PM of India, but alas! Our media didn’t learn a bit from the blunder that our shy PM made at recent balochistan issue. No reporter points out the need of a good debater in Indian politics and no channel mentioned that when Rahul appreciated Nitish, it was pure politics and nothing more than that. Even today media found praise in the fact that Rahul did trekking; however was worried about results of state assembly elections (But why he took a cameraman there?)

After 2009 general elections, congress got the clear verdict. Rahul Gandhi was once again extolled for his sacrifice as he repudiated the post of minister and preferred working as a party worker. Had Sachin pilot made such sacrifice, I would have appreciated it because as long as Rahul captures the center stage, he can only imagine becoming a minister at most. But if Rahul makes such sacrifice, that is more of a premeditated move. Congress is ordained to be in power for next 5 years and hence instead of making hasty moves, projecting rahul as a “Tyaag ki murti” is a much safer bet. Had congress failed to get majority, Rahul would have been the next PM without delay after a pre-intended drama of party workers demanding youth participation blah blah.

If Rahul Gandhi, destined to be the PM of dumb headed Indian junta, sacrifices his ambitions of becoming a PM and prefers to stay at ground level, I would be the first person to vote for him. If he really is what he showcases during his India tour (in which he is always accompanied by a reporter), I challenge him to step down from PM in waiting.

The Crap That is Bollywood

The worst, horrendously lethal lie that I have ever come across in my life is “our movies reflect the Indian society”, as claimed by heaps of bollywood directors. Quite shamelessly they have been declaring so since decades and still continue to do so. Here I would be averring that this so called bollywood is nothing more than a crap meant to fool the Indian public and has nothing indigenous or original in it

The lack of originality starts with the name itself. The term bollywood is a copied version of Hollywood. Since ages this name was very fondly used till bollywood spread its business overseas. Bollywood personalities were mocked at the copied name and hence the new generation started calling it ‘The Hindi film industry’. But the amount of Hindi that is spoken in any award function would seriously compel you to consider the feasibility of this name. Very few actors in bollywood have a Hindi background nowadays and they are often found jibing classical Hindi and taking pride in inserting English words/phrases in their dialogues, songs and what not.

Now coming to the basic question - do our movies really reflect our society in general? Innumerable examples may be quoted. Let’s start with the basic composition of any bollywood movie – family and relations. Hot issues like rape, premarital sex, abortion etc have been dealt with such havoc in bollywood that every Indian learns this adult things right in childhood. I can bet many of us haven’t come across any such incident in reality and only face embarrassment while watching these so called family movies with family. Almost every movie in 70s’ depicted rapes under the pretext that we are showing what is happening in the society, but they only helped causing more rapes in the society. Shame on such movies and movie industry.

Most of the family movies sound more like an overdose of emotions and the irony is that the role of sati savitri is given to the most famous who** , meaning to say that actors are considered more for their face value and less for their fitness in the role. That is why you will find the great over actors like Sharukh Khan as King Khan in this great bollywood and actors like Irfan Khan, Nana Patekar, Om puri doing monotonous roles. Even good actor like Ajay devgan is rarely considered for some Yashraj banner pure romantic movie, since he is not chocolaty and wheatish people seldom love!!!

The only thing that they cannot show is some western trend of nudity or incestuous relationship due to society constraints Not astonishingly, even these have been attempted but could not create a success brigade as they got financially crippled. But thanks to Bhatt camp, one can find them again in our movies under the pretext of modern society/ young trends and other such bullshit. What about this one – even actor as old as Dilip Kumar has acted in a movie on wife swapping which is a completely borrowed subject. Hmmm, bollywood has been copying and presenting damn anything right from start.

To Be continued.........

( A very typical scenario found in every bollywood movie is the one in which young children of main lead actor or the childhood version of main lead actor is always shown being educated in some convent school under the aegis of a holy father. This scene manifests two blind assumptions at a time. Firstly, all missionaries give comparatively good character education and secondly, all aspiring youths go for English medium convents rather than some sort of Hindi medium vidya mandir. At this place, I would like that all readers should themselves probe into these blind, far away from reality depictions. One can take help of my previous posts to find out the truth behind mission of holy missionaries. So one can see how clearly our directors have been brain washing our minds to believe that whatsoever comes from west is better, no wonders why the middle class takes pride in mentioning their convent related background. Angrez chale gaye par apne kutte yahin chhod gaye. )

The Best Doctrine

I was really compelled to express my gratitude towards a doctrine which changed my life forever, a doctrine which holds its existence from the time immemorial and still defines each and every of our actions, immaterial of our faith in it. The doctrine of Karma is a theory which controls this entire universe and as per me it is the best spiritual material a consistent mind can ever come across. Loads of material is there at internet and I could have cut/paste them here, but here I would try to explain this theory within the realms of my perception.

Starting from movies like Matrix to serials like Lost and till the speech of Steve Jobs at Stanford, innumerable times I have come across the term Karma being used in English society. Curiosity arose to know, what at all is there in this doctrine that westerners keep chanting it every now and then? This was the time when I first became interested in theology and did a comparative study

Rational minds often don’t believe in the existence of God. At a time, I too was unable to explain as to why someone dies of hunger while someone is wasting food just to satisfy his tongue. At one side a girl is torturously raped and on the other side a child dies of illness in front of its own mother. Why at all God is so partial and just to explain this thing, atheists take the name of chance/luck/nature.

So the basic question that bothers everyone is that if at all there is God, then why is he so partial/blind. Now let us leave this spiritual plane and enter the material plane. Material plane is governed by Newton’s third law which states that for each and every action, we are bound to get an equal and opposite reaction. If a ball strikes the ground then ground will also strike the ball. Tit for tat. This law holds universally, so further examples are not required

Now let us enter the reference frame of this world. If this world will create pollution then the world will have to suffer from global warming. If this world engages in world war, world only will suffer. Definitely, no one else would.

Consider the reference frame of society. If the society will not deal with crimes, crimes will increase and society only will suffer in the future. Once again, tit for tat.

At personal level, we can say that if you not take care of your health you only would suffer, no one else. If you would not study, you will fail. Here too, tit for tat.

So at all levels and frames, one has to reap what he sows and this exactly is the gist of Bhagwad Gita where Lord Krishna defines that one has to pay for its actions. Spiritual plane considers Karma at a much larger scale. Some of our actions are immediate in reciprocation. Many worldly actions are dealt in this world alone and we taste the results in our present life only. But spiritually good/bad Karma gets counted even after this life. If one helps a poor by giving him food/water/shelter, he would not get any help from that poor now as a reaction. His spiritually good action would for the time being give him satisfaction of self, but in later life he would be rewarded in a fashion so as to be more focused on attaining Moksha. A murderous dictator may die as a king but he would be penalized either in this life or the next. Here is why some persons are born handicapped, mentally challenged or utterly poor. They were destined to be born like this only, can anyone offer any other explanation?

But still what is the fault of a child if he dies of hunger, what is the fault of an innocent girl if she gets raped? Here is the answer. We have to consider the society frame now. We allowed corruption, loss of values, loss of order and did not raise a voice. We followed the policy that prevention is better than cure and hence restricted girls from going outside instead of dealing with perverts. So who would pay for all this? Obviously society and since that girl is a part of society, she had to bear the consequences. If society follows order, no one would die of hunger and no one would get persecuted. Short span of life of the child may be a result of many of his past actions or the present actions of society.

Gist is the same, sow good to reap good and do this at all levels. We have seen societies where no one died of hunger or no one got raped, it’s a matter of choice what kind of society we build in.

Newton’s third law of motion is the extension of Doctrine of Karma at material plane and since the third law is scientifically verified, why should a rational mind defy its application at all levels? The most interesting theory is yet to come and that is the theory of reincarnation which is a direct corollary of the Doctrine of Karma. This theory is unique to Hinduism alone and no other religion believes in terms like past life or the life after death. Not only in India, but even in the world, there have occurred innumerable instances where a person manages to remember his/her past life. I remember seeing one such case in a TV serial which even scientists failed to explain. So these continual occurrences all around the world further add to the credibility of this theory