Vote for a Change

Vote for a Change

Righteousness based on what is fake
Forcing you till you can't anymore take
You wished you turned back into an ape
For the beginners, that's Indian red tape

Country's scourge, a community's bake
All for the social animal's sake
Hope like an islet between a lake
i give you on it my humble take

This is a call for you to awake
All for you mate! For your sake
Hard for one, where ever you rake
No easy answer this, not a easy cake

Scrap it, with every push a new flake
Expose the rot, shine the strake
Whatever you do, what ever you make
Don’t for once think my effort is fake

Serpentine queues, a lifelong wait
Underhand deals, the commonest bait
Democracy came to us quite late
It is now ours and it's our fate

The protectors we have come to hate
They fleece us at every gate
We run in circles for our date
Be it the court or for the tax rebate

A ray of hope, a form to create
To find in crowd, a noble prelate
He is answer to the debate
A rejoinder to the puzzle first rate

That’s me you should choose to quote
I am your man and i need your vote
Repeat with me, Amit should be your rote
I will uphold promises, the crowd I’ll dote

The future's bright with me, it’s not a tote
I’ll rule just, and save this sinking boat
i am after egalitarianism, not the note
All I ask from you simpletons is a small little vote

I’ll be the leader you ask me to be
That all ends well, a promise I shall see
He who vouches for me, my friend he'll be
And who doesn’t my wrath he shall see



The Voting lines are open in 5 ,4, 3, 2, 1, 0 secs…..Call now!

Should Indian women be allowed in combat roles in Military?

A touchy issue.

A 'No' would have the pseudo feminists in arms while a 'Yes' would burden the vast majority of women who wouldn't even know of this debate brewing with the onerous task of living up to the impractical demands of a Military combat job.

So i would go on to state the reason for my NO. I would be talking about my country's armed forces and not US's. Ours is a developing country with ethos entrenched in cryptic corners of our minds and weather one likes it or not, the men folk here end up looking at the women with gaze that's a mixture of condescending and lecherous designs.

I speak here about the very highly educated who hold the reigns of higher echelons and not the undereducated Man of the ranks. And the situations as you would guess gets worse as the dealings get murkier in the quagmire of ground level situations.

While i do believe that there exist women out there who can put the fittest of men to shame with their level of fitness, such cases are far and few between and are merely exceptions rather than the rule. And mind you, being a fit women doesn't immunise her from the meaningful gazes she has to learn living with to earn a living.

Well, gloomy as it may sound, It's as true as the hypocrite in you wanting to peg me down for my rather politically incorrect view.

(AS posted in another blog)

has your life changed post Mumbai attacks?

Being a part of the security agencies and a non mumbaikar does provide me with another perspective.
Life surely hasn't changed as much as it ought to have. The public outrage while unprecedented, has lacked adequate focus despite the efforts of the few TV news channels we have, who have gone out of their way to propagate public outrage at the cost of being viewed as subjective.
The reason we have all given such attention to the Mumbai terror attack is because it has happened at the doorsteps of the country's elite. It has affected the best in the business and hit the dream city which also has a small place in every Indian's heart.
I hope this attack is a wake up call for all of us in the administration and security agencies. It ought to rouse our self centered politicians and amalgamate this nation of over a billion into a force to reckon with.
We ask for change. And the best place to begin it will be at one's own level. can we sustain the movement. Can we question our own actions. In the continuum of hectic life will we take time out for introspection. These are the pillars of change-a positive one, that our country needs and can have.
I beseech all muslims to consider themselves Indians first and muslims second like i ask all hindus to call themselves Indians first. The terrorists wanted India to target their own muslims and that should set things straight to all the naive and gullible youth.
I hope we all rise and shine.
Amen.

YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN- REVIEW

I have always liked Adam sandler movies. He has a innocence about him that is only rivalled by his comic timing. Detractors might point out his relatively modest budgets and limited cast. The promos got me to the theater on a weekend and alone.

The film is about Zohan, a unbelievably gifted Israeli solider, with immense physical strength (The special effects are good). He is bored with the unending low intensity operations that he has been carrying out for the Army and wants to follow his dream of becoming a hair dresser in America.

The movie is about how he fools army into believing he is dead, leaves for America and his making it big in America- in his own inmitable ways. The film is laced with lots of sex jokes, ribaldry of the highest order, pokes fun at the Arab Israeli dynamics and then puts it in perspective with them being similer immigrants in America. While the film seems to play on a simplistic solution to a very complex problem, it makes a hilarious proposition to moviegoers. If you are a woman, be willing to shed some delicacy back home and come prepared for some in your face crude gimmicks.

CAUTION: Middle aged women are goign to laugh their guts out, so wear a garb to hide your identity.

WELCOME TO SAJJANPUR -Review

Pardon me for any oversights that might occur by virtue of my having watched the movie over seven days back. The tickets were bought by a friend of mine and i did manage to reach just in time for the show. The knowledge that the film is by Shyam Benegal did surprise me. The narrative is through the eyes of a villager who completed his education before returning to the village. No, he did not get educated in some swanky college of Mumbai but a near by town in the hindi heartland. The language has a tinge of bhojpuri but makes perspicuous understanding. The first half of movie is entirely about weaving the pastoral lifestyle and the rustic ways of indian villages. A love story or two take birth with the depravity of changing social mores contributing to their hues. The sequences almost seems repetitive and one almost wants to jump into a break. And it does happen.
The second half gets more intense with political rallying, a murder here, a heart break there, some sacrifice and then it heads towards a relatively unimpressive ending.
I expected more from the film but having said that the film is dotted with some flawless performances most notably being the role of Shreyas Talpade. Every one else contributes well enough. watch the movie if you have nothing else to do on the weekend.

Stinking 'Sreedhar Theatre'

I am not too much of a historian. Nor am I a social scientist or someone with a degree in demographic and social studies. But I do take the credit for having a cosmopolitan view by virtue of having spent most of my younger days in south India despite being from far reaches of the young fold Himalayas.

Kerala has been a place with tremendous ironies for me. While I admire the cavernous houses for their spaciousness, the unique greenery of this state that evinces awe and envy to an outsider, I am also put off by the overly irascible demeanour of the shopkeepers here. I have been to several small restaurants and found them to be very neat and clean. The tinted glass doors and the stainless steel paraphernalia of the kitchen are as inviting as poker faced waiters are uninviting. It however is, in many way, a welcome change from what we are treated in most parts of the rest of the country. It is this fact that has forced me to write about the piteous state of the Sreedhar theatre in Cochin.

Cochin is the biggest city of Kerala and poised to become a tier II IT hub in the near future. Real estate prices are sky rocketing to dizzying heights as is the urban landscape of this city with high rises along the Cochin channel. This scenario makes the absence of a multiplex that much more pronounced. I wonder where all the keralites go to entertain themselves. While it is not unusual to see the higher end luxury cars frequent the roads of this city I am often forced to mull over the supposed destinations these belles attired in gracious sequins.

Now with out digressing any further, I would like to stake my claim for the crux of the matter here. I was out the other day to see a movie at the famous Sreedhar theatre which is situated at a prime location of the city next to the famous GCDA complex. While getting a ticket was not too difficult, the random way of allotting seats in the theatre did surprise me to no end. I found a couple of the couples in fact lying to people about the seats next to them saying that their friends were expected which in fact never happened till the end. I have watched movies in much smaller towns and much less civilized areas but never have I come across such organised chaos as was being displayed at what is arguably Cochin’s best theatre. Well, the worst was yet to come.

As the movie interrupted for a godsend break and I found my way to the toilet to relieve myself, it turned out my date with a horror of a bathroom. The stench welcomed me over twenty yards away and as I went closer the urge to pee seemed to subside in the fetid milieu. It truly was a toilet that should make any well meaning malyali put his head down in shame. If there was a foreigner in the theatre that day, I would have turned red with embarrassment. I am sure this in not the kind of toilets that we would like to see in the ‘God’s own land’. The kind of people who visit this theatre often drive in Pajeros and Skodas to the tiny parking space that exists outside it. A look around the ticketing area and you would spot at least a dozen millionaires. The people who come often come sporting ‘Police’ glasses and attired in luxury brands. And this is what they put up with.

How much does it cost to build good toilet in the land where the numbers of cars on road exceeds the number of two wheelers? Would it mean an increase in ticket prices by five rupees? So be it. Show me the toilet of the house I want to rent and I will know how the rest of the house is likely to look.

I am terribly disappointed with the governance of the Sreedhar theatre and the average Cochin Movie goer. I wish communism meant more the just strikes and bandhs. I have known malyalis for their pride and self respect. This toilet seems to tell me the other side of the story.

PS: I have steered clear of other topics such as Crowd behaviour in the theatre

Review of the Film "Rock On(Hindi)”

Cast: Farhan Akhatar, Arjun Rampal among others

Co Directed and produced by Farhan Akhatar

The film begins with a Hinglish rock song and begins creating the picture the director envisaged. The opening scene is well crafted. As the film progresses we come to know of lives that four men who seem to be socio-economically apart but are on a similar plane as far as their personal lives are concerned. While one is living a limited marriage, another is living on his wife's pay, the third is inefficient at his father’s enterprise while the fourth is doing nothing and seems to be in the most unenviable state. Two of the four are married and one has a kid as well. The film creates two parallel sequence of events which are temporally 10 years apart. While the style is catchy, the plot gets slow as the film approaches the one hour mark. From then on, the movie gets slower and the whiff of freshness that it began with, begins to wear away and you suddenly are looking forward to the intermission.

The film picks up pace in the second half as the reviews that got me to the theatre seem to vindicate themselves. The ensuing hour manages to snatch back a lot of grace. Almost all the scenes are flawless; the one that seems out of place is where Mascaranes and co hop across Mumbai in half a minute.

Do go for the movie, if you like good individual performances and flowing screenplay. But avoid it if you are looking for a gung ho, upbeat party time movie. This one's more intense that you would have thought.

Kudos to all the actors for a good job done.