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!

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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

The NOT so IPL-ish TALE

Ever since my dad got transferred back to Mysore, there seems to be an added competition at home when it comes to who gets the T.V remote. During the days when dad was in Banglore, when it came to the remote, I used to fight with my granny (ajji). Ajji is one tough cookie. She watches nearly 10 serials/soaps a day. Now, I’m not complaining. She deserves to relax as she is the one who feeds us with her deliciously cooked food. But there are days when I feel like watching some T.V myself. And all my primetime shows gets clashed with ajji’s never-ending soaps. But that doesn’t stop me from catching at least a few minutes of my shows "in-between”. I’ll be waiting eagerly with the remote in my hand, hoping for her exaggeratedly ridiculous T.V soap to arrive at an Ad break and that’s when I grab my opportunity to quickly surf the channels that I want to see. Even though it’s only for a few minutes before ajji would say “Haku” and mono-syllabically remind me to change the channel back to her precious elastic band soap (I call them elastic band because, they elongate a single story plot to such an extent that the story looks stagnant for a period of about a month!), I find peace in the fact that I got to watch some T.V that day. And sometimes I shamelessly end up enjoying ajji’s soaps too but I never give her the satisfaction that I've enjoyed it as I keep retorting in-between as to how ridiculous the characters are!

That’s how mine and ajji’s daily routine was. But today when I came downstairs at prime-time to catch some T.V action, I noticed an extra competitor ready with the remote in his hand to change the channel the moment ajji’s soap entered an Ad break. My dad grinned at me and purposefully waved the remote in my face before he flipped the T.V to show some IPL action. “Ugh, now I have to endure cricket too”, I grumbled in a low voice before seating myself on the sofa with an air of resignation.

When it comes to cricket, all I can do is just doze off. I just don’t have the required interest in it. I always felt amazed how those people seated in the stadium are able to sit through an entire match. Forget the test match, even an ODI takes forever to finish. And hence T-20 looks like a mere game of 20 minutes to the hard-core fans. But for me, cricket means slow-moving of time. I just don’t have the patience to sit through an entire match. And so here I was, sitting and grumbling and occasionally (despite the non-interest) asking dad who the captain of Delhi Daredevil was. I had forgotten how fun it is to watch a cricket match with dad around. He makes the whole game look like its being played by a bunch of clowns. He always has something funny to say about each cricketer. So I chucked the broodings of missing some of my shows today and I realized that I was glad to have my dad back as I really missed his funny quips on daily basis.

After sometime, dad dozed off and started snoring. By then, his funny quips and interesting insights on the cricketers playing that day (DD v/s CSK) got me glued to the IPL fever and as the match looked to be in the favour of Chennai Super kings, I wanted to see if I was correct. Ajji, seeing that her son had successfully dozed off, happily and stealthily tried to change the channel back to her precious soap. “Ajji, naanu nodthidini cricket na. In en match mugiyathe”, I told ajji that even I’m watching the match and asked her not to change the channel for some time. Now it was my granny’s turn to grumble but nonetheless she obliged and surrendered me the remote.

Now, I knew that Chennai would win today. So I ended up observing some “off-field” stuffs that I had failed to notice till now. Whenever the cricketers were not batting or bowling or fielding, the camera took interest in the crowd. Apart from frequently focusing on the dancing cheer-leaders, the camera-man made sure the entire nation got a few second glimpses of all the pretty and charming damsels present at the podium that night. This was no surprise as IPL is built for only 3 things: “Entertainment, entertainment and entertainment”.

But what made me laugh were the different reactions that would dance on these pretty faces whenever they noticed that their face was all over the big-screens at the podium. One girl laughed with triumph and ended up jumping up and down with hysteria on having seen herself on the big-screen. Another girl bravely faced the camera and gave her most charming smile. And some ladies would plainly ignore that they were being shown on the big-screen. 

Apart from the cheer-leaders and the random pretty girls that they captured on the big-screen from time to time, the camera-man made sure even the men got some action. And so he zoomed-out and made sure all the men were seen on the big-screen “at a time”. Poor men, they looked like they belonged to a band on monkeys. They indeed acted like monkeys, jumping on one another just to make sure they could briefly see themselves on the big-screen. No doubt, they would go home that day and tell their mothers, wives and children an exaggerated version of how they got captured on-screen for a long time!

In the end, despite myself I had to agree that this IPL, though flashy in many ways, is fun to watch now and then. Apart from the usual cricket, I liked observing the people present on the stadium today. I don’t think they would ever get bored if they are seated in the podium. Firstly the cricket in itself is such an exciting fever to have and celebrate when they are in the stadium and secondly and most importantly, the mere excitement and the expectancy of having to see their face on the “big-screen” (may be even for a second!) is also an exciting feeling to have for any die-hard cricket fan.

Image source- google.

Acrostic Short Story- Frozen Time

FROZEN TIME

Forever igniting the fire within me,

Reverberating the waves of despair;

Only to find a deeply burnt hole,

Zoned right through my once naive heart.

Empathy empathized me to trust you,

Neglecting my heart’s health as it consumed your repeated lies.

Time felt frozen with you around.

Ingloriously drowned myself in blind faith. Alas,

My love for you froze with the frozen time,

Ever-lasting love ceased to exist the moment you chose to desert me       with a mangled and bruised heart.

Written For:  Acrostic Only, Poetry Jam

More Flash-55 Fictions

1) Eyes Speaks All

Standing inside a bus, I saw him staring at me. His piercing gaze caught my attention. His eyes challenged me. Well, two can play this game! I stared right back at him and our eye-contact continued till the next stop. As I passed him, smiling and ruffling his hair, the little kid said "Bye Didi"!!

2) Splash of Color

“Red, Blue, Green, Orange... all those colours you sport yourself and yet you dare tease me??”

“Colourful, colourful, you are colourful!!” came the jeering.

“But it’s only a streak of pink”, she replied ruefully, checking out her new hair-do from the mirror.

“Behind her, the happy parrot continued to guffaw, “Colourful, colourful, you are colourful!!”

3) Mind Games

Tiny thoughts tickled my mind;

His tiny trots engulfed me to find.

Where did he go? Looked around;

Caught him disappearing behind the forbidden blind-fold.

I followed him, increasing my pace;

Was pulled back by man without a face.

His gurgling laugh made me scream.

“Mommy, wake-up! It’s just a dream!!”

Relief washed over me.

4) Flirt Fail

“Hey there, you need a ride?”

“No thanks, I’m married”, she flashed him her ring-finger.

“Come on baby, get in the car. I don’t mind”, he winked at her playfully.

She glared at him and continued to walk towards the house.

She turned back and yelled, “Honey, quit fooling around and bring in the groceries!”

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