It’s time we Indians stopped slavishly adapting the customs of the decadent West. Don’t we have our own sanskriti and our own heritage to live up to?
Which is why we should celebrate “Kamdev Chaturthi” instead of Valentine’s Day.
And April Fool’s Day should give way to “Ullu Divas”.
Continue reading ‘April Fool’s Day—Time To Make Some Changes’
I always have this problem that noone seems to tag me. There are all these innumerable memes floating around the Net: bloggers are being tagged left, right and center. Except that it is never me.
Why does noone tag the Greatbong? Doesn’t anybody want to know what my idea of a perfect woman is ? Well then what about my idea of a perfect man (and no it’s not Mithun-da)? There is also no interest in my favorite color (which incidentally is “yellow”) or the 10 things that want to make me go “Ooh”.
You cannot turn on the TV nowadays without being bombarded by trailers of Basic Instinct II with a 48-year old Sharon Stone trying to reprise the role of femme-fatale Catherine Trammell , the hypersexual novel-writer with a propensity for ice-picks and cigarettes and a queer affliction of restless-leg syndrome from the cult classic, Basic Instinct (1992)
Incidentally, I cannot rid myself of the feeling that in some dark corner of the world, Dev Anand is chuckling to himself—Sharon Stone at 48, me at 84. Both sultry sex symbols.
Over the years, Basic Instinct has spawned so many B-grade wannabes [identifying characteristics: 1) blurb inevitably contains one or more of these stock words “Dangerous”, “Passions”, “Dark”, “Obsessions”, “Twisted” , “Lust”, “Seduction” and “Double-cross” 2) cover art consists of shadowy bodies or a skimpily dressed lady with a gun/knife in her hand.] that I doubt a sequel can promise anything new either in terms of story (really who cared) or in terms of shock.
But even then, I will still go to watch Basic Instinct II—-simply to pay obeisance to the phenomenon of the original.
Continue reading ‘Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (BASIC) Instinct’
Aesop was sitting on a tree stump. Around him were the townspeople—eager to hear a story.
“Not so long ago” began Aesop, “there was a husband and wife.”
“Once they went to a shop to do some gift shopping for Durga Puja. The wife was selecting the saris and the husband was watching paint dry on walls.
I have nothing but the greatest contempt for ungrateful people who try to cover up their own miserable failings by blaming everyone but themselves.
Case in point: Kalpana Lajmi.
She directs “Chingari”—or perhaps “directed” is too charitable a term to use when someone creates a celluloid monstrosity on this scale. Even a bloated corpse with a megaphone could have done better.
And then in an [link courtesy: Amit Pandeya] interview to Subhash Jha (who along with Taran Adarsh can be considered to be the “movie reviewer from hell”) , she blames virtually everyone on the sets for the sorry debacle of “Chingari” except herself and Sushmita Sen—the two people who are actually responsible for the sorry mess.
Sachin Tendulkar wafts at an innocuous James Anderson delivery and walks to the pavillion leaving India at the jaws of defeat.
Then the unthinkable happens.
The Mumbai crowd booes Sachin Tendulkar. Can this be happening in independent India?
Dravid, Ganguly can’t be ideals: Rajnath
New Delhi: Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid can be sources of entertainment for the youth but never their ideals, says BJP President Rajnath Singh.
“Earlier even students of primary classes knew about freedom fighters like like Bhagat Singh, Khudiram Bose and Baba Jatin but today they can only recall the names of film stars and cricketers like Ganguly and Dravid,” Singh said.
The BJP President was addressing the national executive meeting of the party’s youth wing, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM).
“Film stars and players can be sources of entertainment but never ideals. It is people like Chandrashekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh who should be the ideals”, the party Chief said.
He said while the youth were interested in film heroines, they should not forget the people who fought for the nation’s self-respect.
I checked the Rediff version of the same PTI newsreport and yes there was the same mistake. So that means either Rajnath or the editors who are responsible for checking for “typos” at PTI/ CNN-IBN/Rediff or perhaps all of them don’t know that the name is not Baba Jatin but Bagha Jatin. [The “Bagha” comes from the fact that he killed a tiger with a knife—his real name was Jatindranath Mukherjee.]
A bit ironic…ain’t it ?
Am sure if Dravid was spelt as David, someone would have noticed.
Some things I never thought would happen:
1. Jaya Prada becoming a hip hop artist. Possibly the most matronly heroine around (with the honorable exception of the bovine-eyed Rakhi)—even in her heydays, I would never have thought of her becoming a desi Missy Elliott or Lil Kim once she was on the wrong side of 40. Or it may be 50.
Jaya Prada with a doll in her hand singing [Sanjog]:
“Zhu zhu zhu, zhu zhu zhu, Yasodha ka nandlala, Brij ka ujala hai, Mere laal se to sara jag jhilmilaye, Raat thandi thandi hawa gake sulaye, Bhor gulabi palke choomke jagaye…’’
Yes. I get that.
Co
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