Find yer man, woman!!

I just couldn’t help it today. I had to watch a movie.  But not just any movie, I ended up watching the movie of a spinster who writes colourful tales about her love-life in her small diary and hence, very rightfully it’s a movie that goes by the name, “Bridget Jones Diary”.

Apart from the witty and humorous British dialogues and the many viewings of Bridget’s colourful panty closet that ranged from huge grandma panties to some sleazy animal printed ones, I couldn’t help but appreciate the task a single woman has to handle all her life, just to get the right man.

Is there even such a thing as a right man? Even if there is or “are”, how would one know who that bastard is? They are everywhere- firstly in every spinster’s dreams, then on the various television channels and then there are a few from work, some old college friends or even a few school friends for that matter and not to mention the many handsome faces one eyes on the road in general.

But these men are like mirages. They look too real and even reachable from a distant but if a girl even loses her place and falls for such flashy stuff, she sure is gonna realise that what she “thought” is real, is indeed fake.

Ultimately, such befuddlement would often lead to the usual heart breaks, teary nights, excessive eating and emotionally moronic behaviours that would in-turn lead to some scruffy embarrassments on the outward public eye. But Bridget Jones faced all of it and still found her guy at the end. How Charming!!

If this turned out to be true in real life, I wouldn’t be sitting here and writing this stuff for starters. Yet I’m a fan of the movie. Because not even in the movies these days they show an average looking, slightly fat woman, working in some average job, leading an average life, do her thing in order to finally find and accept her man.

All thanks to the jazzy, flashy entertainment industry, there is really not much of a centre stage for average looking women. Entertainment has its protocols to get their T.R.P’s or whatever the hell they strive for these days. But very quickly even the real life is turning into reel these days. It’s a bummer most of these jazzy protocols apply more to women rather than men. But that’s that and can’t be said or done more regarding this. It’s a pity, really. One woman’s necessity is another woman’s horror show!

Now coming back to Bridget, finding a man is no mean feat. It’s a bloody task indeed. One cannot enact a fairy tale by sitting in some chamber and waiting for her prince charming to arrive coz F.Y.I, they would never arrive!

Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger), a 32 year old spinster decides to take matters into her own hands and ends up appearing at her work place in vanishing mini-skirts and see-through blouses and as planned, gets her boss (Hugh Grant) follow her around with his heart throbbing at all the wrong places! Funny how the world works! If a woman is “seeing” someone, then other men (who ignored the same woman initially) start to show more attention towards her. So that’s how Bridget unknowingly manages to get her nemesis’s (Colin Firth) attention towards her.

It’s a cute movie and an excellent time pass to watch it but how much of it can be brought about to real life? “How Bridget can you get to nail some handsome guy!” the risk involved in the very task of finding a right guy or just any guy for that matter, is imaginably grave. But heart wants something the mind doesn’t appreciate.

So if one is all set to take matters into one’s own hands to find their man, then one should also be ready to face all the atrocities and humiliations when one has thrown one-self very publicly to a mountainous task called “Find yer man, woman!”.

Now the question is “How much embarrassments are you ready to endure in order to find a right guy?”, “Is it even really necessary to enter such dangerous gamble in one’s life?” ... tough questions, but I don’t like taking unwanted risks in life unless it’s really exciting. I always had a heart towards adventure but that was regarding innocent mountaineering or hiking. Now, this is a very different kind of adventure and I’m not so sure how cut out I am for this, to tell the truth.

But if the end results of entering such unknown duels in my life would lead me to be surrounded by similar versions of smirky Hugh Grants and gentlemanly Colin Firths, then why not?!

Sigh, dreams I tell ya, they ruin you!!

P.S: With exams just a few days away, this is what I end up blogging about!! Guilty! ;) 

The Drama-Queens of Parliament

You don’t need a cartoon to know how slow the system is!

Every news channel today was covering the on-going row/drama that was unfolding at the parliament houses. Topic for this childishly heated argument: A seemingly humorous caricature of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru.

Back in the year 1949, the alleged piece of cartoon was first published by the celebrated cartoonist Shankar Pillai. Back then, the same parliament had applauded his works and even awarded him various national prashasthi’s like the Padma Shree, Padma Bhushan etc.

About 60 years later, in the year 2006, the same cartoon was republished nationwide in a small category of class 11^th NCERT text books. All was going well until on a fine Monday morning like today, some political dude who goes by the name Thol. Thirumavalavan woke up, caught sight of the caricature in the text book and decided to shake up the sleepy parliament houses by voicing rage on who decided to publish such atrociously insulting and yet funny cartoon in a kid’s text-book.

To grab all the lime-light in this seemingly opportune moment, Mr. Thol showed the members seated at the mad-house parliament how powerful he is by agitatedly voicing the insult the cartoon had caused to the nation heroes Mr. Ambedkar and Nehru. He even had fun pointing his finger at the scapegoat of the day: HRD minister Kapil Sibal. Poor Sibal had no idea that today he would be invited to the mad-house parliament to apologise for a mistake for which he bore no responsibility.

The cartoon depicts Ambedkar with a whip in his hand and sitting on a snail that represents the slow moving pace of Indian constitution and Nehru is backing Ambedkar with another whip in his hand in order to speed up the country’s constitution. The back ground depicts a gang of aggressive communists who are tired of the slow running of our government and are on their way to take matters into their own hands. Alas, an angry mob can be easily misled by just pointing a finger at another direction.

The more I observed the truth behind this 60 year old cartoon, the more I felt inclined to agree that whatever happened at the mad-house parliament today, was somewhat related to the caricature at hand on which they were heatedly arguing to bring about a ban. Mr. Thol outrageously staggered a wrong momentum at the house and most of the members inside the parliament who can’t take two decisions on their own, blindly nodded their approval on banning and removal of this cartoon from the NCERT text books hence forth.

I guess most of them backed up this decision to ban the cartoon for the fear of losing their seats and not because the cartoon really brought about the alleged insult to long demised Dr. Ambedkar. Even the scapegoat, Sabil had no other option but to apologise in front of all the members present at the mad-house parliament.

Whatever happened to freedom of speech? I still fathom on the fact that after more than 60 years of the same piece of cartoon getting published and more than 6 years later of its second republishing, what caused the government to nod blindly and approve the ban on this particular piece of cartoon? It’s so stupid. One man wants attention and the government mundanely gives him that attention by unwittingly high-lighting such trivial issues as this.

And the media revolves around this small issue and projects to the larger community as if this is a grave matter to be viewed on every news channel. While the media was highlighting the unwanted drama to the nation for hours, there was another breaking news which was more important than this cartoony issue and which most of them failed to notice as it was being shown at the bottom screen of some news channels and while being completely ignored by the rest: the flight crash in Nepal, killing 13 Indians. 

I sat in front of the TV for half an hour to see if these news channels would give more details regarding the flight crash. Alas, one can’t expect more news on trivial flight crashes while the media is dancing around the mad-house parliament.

Maybe after this silly drama had ended, the news got shifted to the plane crash, but that’s the issue plaguing our nation isn’t it? The media exists to showcase unimportant issues first and important issues later.

Now that they have successfully banned and highlighted this cartoony issue to such a height, all the kids from class 11^th are surely going to be talking about this famous cartoon for days to come. They can ban something like this from a text book, but they can’t ban the issue completely from an Indian mind.

Silly Politics!

***

links:
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3409271.ece
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/nation/north/ambedkar-cartoon-aircel-maxis-issues-disrupt-lok-sabha-545

Red Bus mattu (and) Rash Driving

Bangalore is filled with compressed-air powered red buses. I love these buses. Unlike the old blue buses, these red buses look a lot like Volvo and yet they are “common-man“ friendly and hold a lot of space inside the bus for travelers to stand comfortably during rush hour. But not all of these buses get good bus drivers. I've had near fall out experiences once or twice while I was travelling in one of these huge buses.

Compressed air-power buses have a lot of power in terms of speed as well as brakes. Sudden braking makes the bus going at any speed to come to a halt within seconds. But the full impact of it is shown inside the bus. Passengers sitting don’t have to endure much problem. But the one’s standing gets its full impact.

I was lucky the other day. I was standing near the pole. Both my hands were busy holding my wallet and in the process of taking out money to pay the bus conductor. Suddenly the driver hit the brake and the bus moving at 80, came to a sudden halt. My whole body was thrown forward but my sudden instincts directed my hands to hold fast the pole and with a backward twist, I got the required support and saved myself from falling down head first on the floor. I was so angry at the driver, but since I hadn’t fallen I didn’t feel the need to go and start a boring quarrel with him. Minutes later I got the seat and I happily settled down with ear phones and music. My friend, who was sitting behind my seat tapped my shoulder and said loudly with a snigger, “Neha, when did you learn to pole dance? You are pretty good!!” I turned back to retaliate and saw that her words had carried to the men’s section and many guys were nodding in mock approval. “I’ll get you for this girl!!” I growled at her laughing face and turned back to see the driver, who was happily singing and hitting the brakes roughly at unnecessary junctions.

The bus was getting more and more crowded at every stop. All the ladies were standing precariously. Poor women, they had no idea that they had just mounted a bus that was being driven by a moronic driver. And then it happened. Another one of bus driver’s signature “sudden brakes”. Two ladies standing beside my seat toppled onto one another, causing the third lady to fall down on the bus floor. This was followed by loud shrieks and a high pitched quarrel could be heard loud and clear even through the loud music from my ear phones. The ladies were blaming each other for falling. They should scold the driver who is the root cause for causing this catastrophe.  I thought angrily. But I caught the driver, happily waving to a fellow bus driver and totally oblivious to what was happening on the bus behind him. Was he really oblivious or was he showcasing “jaana kividu” (a Kannada phrase which means, “smart deafness”) to the din that was taking place behind him?? I had half a mind to get up and hit him in the head and then smugly apologize  by telling the “brakes” had caused me to “accidently” hit him!!

Thankfully my stop arrived and I was the first to literally jump out of the bus with relief. As I saw the red bus making its way through the narrow crowded road showcasing its power speed and power brakes, I almost felt like I had just gotten off the knight bus from the Harry Potter movie. It happens only in India!!

Forgotten

Forgetting important things has always been a passive habit of mine.

Often when I travel, I get this lingering feeling that I might have left something behind.

Really, sometimes I just wish I could forget forgetting for once.

Generally, I forget to pick up my mom from the grocery shop.

Of course she can’t reach me through my cell-phone.

That’s because I’d often forget to recharge its battery too!

Ting tong! Wonder who that could be?

Evening MOM, I know I forgot again, sorry... (That's one angry mom!)

Now, where was I? Oh, forget it... ~waves a white flag!!!~

P.S: Just to be clear, I never forget to pick up my mom from the grocery shop!! 

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