Category Archives: Uncategorized

I Got Married

–Impromptu Post Warning–

–Uncalled-for-Drama Warning–

I got married. Yeah, I did.

Thankfully, it was only a dream nightmare. But never before have I spring-jumped from my bed like a jack-out-of-the-box and scurried across the confines of my little apartment in the hope that I don’t stumble into that deadly creature popularly known as THE WIFE.

As it so happens, it turned out to be an arranged marriage. The wife-to-be’s deranged relatives kept pouring in to my home in an area mildly similar to Antarctican extremes. They ripped off my tee-shirt and started applying some sort of powder on my body that resembled very closely in color to liquid excreta entering a Level II Treatment Section in a remote sanitation facility. Very soon, the sound of music took up the air. And by ‘sound of music’, I meant aunty cheerleaders (without the cheerleader outfits, of course) screaming their lungs out at the prospect of seeing me go under the knife.

Despite all the chaos, I attempted to take aside of a few of my I-think-they’re-sane-enough family members and desperately tried to convince them that I do NOT want to marry. This girl. Any girl. Don’t. Want. To. Marry. I attempted to fake-puke my way out of the marriage, but to nothing. Relatives kept pouring in, however. Apart from the free food, I failed to understand what motivated them so strongly. Oh wait, my death.

Saner are those people who live unmarried lives, even if they’re usually demented and search for stuff like ‘mangal pandey sex’ or ‘dog toilets’ on this blog. Less paranoid are those people who shun marriage but are crazy enough to take kids to a room and offer them a ‘lollypop’. Marriage is, by heaps and bounds and miles and kilometers and Chetan Bhagat book pages, the scariest invention ever.

Scariest. Ever.

All it took was a dream nightmare for me to realize that.

Of Course, They Knew!

Following the death of the world’s most wanted terrorist, I blogged a few thoughts [Read] about why the Al-Qaeda threat still looms large simply because of the time taken by the United States of America to hunt down Osama Bin Laden.

Moving the stream of thoughts towards Pakistan, one has to say that it is unimaginable that the country’s leadership was unaware of a hiding Bin Laden in Abbottabad, the home of Pakistan’s very own military academy and several retired Army officers (according to news reports). Clearly, it makes sense to believe that the Pakistani Army and the country’s intelligence bureau, ISI, were somewhat aware and indirectly aided the survival of Bin Laden. Even the Americans must have realized this – which could be the reason why they kept the Pakistanis out of the operation they undertook to kill him.

Abbottabad, as a simple query for directions on Google Maps proves, is approximately 88 miles away from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad by road. This indicates that Pakistan may be a safe abode for several other terrorists. The likes of Hafiz Saeed roam around freely in the country giving hate speeches in favour of the Kashmiri ‘freedom movement’, anyway. [See video]

The Pakistani military and the ISI are the two (single-most?) most powerful entities in the country that the whole world will now suspect to be the root of terrorism (not Afghanistan, not anymore). It is very likely that they offered covert protection to Bin Laden and waited in the hope that the Americans would take some time to locate him. And the Americans did take time. They took so much time that the death may not have much significance, except on the streets of New York and other American cities where people are rejoicing. All along, Pakistan has stocked up ‘aid’ in terms of arms, ammunition and other military hardware. For a decade, and counting.

There is so much uncertainty that one is compelled to believe that a clear double game is being played and has been played all along. Pakistan claims to be helping the Americans clean up the terror trail, while we remain unsure about how much of a bonhomie there exists between the Pakistani military/ISI and the Al-Qaeda/Taliban. It is up to the world’s foremost superpower, now that they got rid of a man they so desperately sought, to grind Pakistan regarding Bin Laden’s resort-like mansion in Abbottabad. How he survived for so long? How did he manage to live in the middle of a township, when word all along had been about caves and mountains? More importantly, how did nobody know?

Or maybe, somebody did.

Blood Terror

Associating religion with terrorism is an act that is generally considered to be politically incorrect and insensitive, but even the most influential politicians tend to bring up direct references to religion when discussing increasing terror concerns. Union Home Minister, P Chidambaram, recently spoke of the rising threat of ‘saffron’ terror in India.

Members of India’s various saffron factions are alleged to be behind at least five terror attacks the country has suffered over the last decade. Saffron terror, which B Raman terms as ‘Hindu reprisal terrorism’, is currently not as big a threat as Islamist terrorism in terms of the count of loss of lives. But that does not mean there should be no check on it’s rise in India. Or that the threat should be dismissed.

Through out the last few decades, organizations like the RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal have been involved in training extremist Hindus and giving provocative hate speeches in various parts of the country. The political wing of thes RSS is the BJP, which alongwith Shiv Sena responded disappointingly to Chidambaram’s remarks on saffron terror with negative behaviour that led to the Rajya Sabha being adjourned not once, but twice.

Any threatening phenomenon that causes innocent lives to be lost, according to me, is terrorism. It does not help if we calculate how threatening one form is in comparison to other forms. This may eventually impact our actions on the threats, which are of utmost importance.

Defenders and apologists of any form of terrorism turn a blind eye to the fact that innocent lives are lost, and that is never an acceptable thing. Not in the worst of cases. So the question is – if the spills of terrorism come out in the form of blood of innocent Indians, then why take sides? Let’s deal with all forms of terror, let’s eliminate all forms of terror.

Only this will ensure all forms of peace. And that, is the need of the hour.

Kambakht Ishq – Not for kids, adults or aliens

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Kambakht Ishq.

Just like all previous purposeful mistakes I’ve made in my life, I added one more to the list when I landed in a cinema hall (albeit on a social outing with family) to watch Kambakht Ishq. And this is what happened.

Dog.

B***h.

B*****d.

Not everyday do you get to know what it feels like to be punched by Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson in a one-on-two match. Even worse, I’m way too weak and vulnerable already.

So how is Kambakht Ishq, you may ask. How does it feel like to see a dog have his bowels emptied, the excreta picked up and packaged into a double-cheese burger and given to you as your ‘junk meal’?

Yes. That bad. And add the dog’s ‘soft-drink’ to complete the package.

The ringa-ringa-roses begin in a church, where even God was pitiably forced to witness the testament of a failed wedding, Kareena Kapoor’s in-your-face non-acting and stuntman Akshay Kumar’s attempts to save the men of the world from evil women. I pity you, God. I do.

Before the ‘I do’ is completed and poor old Aftab Shivdasani (who apparently still exists to give goofy smiles and fill the ‘chaprasi-disguised-as-supporting-actor’ roles) is completely deprived of any sex life with beau Amrita Arora, you have a failed wedding with cakes being hurled in all directions for no purpose whatsoever when they should have seriously considered donating them to thousands of engineering students who could use it as cannon fodder.

As life goes on (and so does the dog-b***h claptrap), Kareena amazingly drops her ringtone-watch while doing her first surgery EVER into Akshay’s stomach. The visuals pop up in an x-ray and Kareena decides that she must fake love to retrieve the watch while Akshay apparently ends up falling in love, sacrificing all the principles on which his life was based in the movie.

In between, you have Hollywood icons Sylvester Stallone and Denise Richards do cameos. Javed Jaffery and Kirron Kher waste their talents in poorly-scripted roles. Shivdasani and Arora are just plain fillers, while Akshay’s wacky sidekick is a hyper-lame imitation of many other previously successful Bollywood sidekicks.

Add to this, Kapoor’s questionable and self-righteous attitude towards people who watch movies clearly speaks volumes about the escalated power that Bollywood brokers in the country today. A day doesn’t seem to be far off where the ‘stars’ hardly bother about pleasing fans, but impose themselves in a rather Orwellian way of doing things.

Make movies. Make better movies. Let the people decide.

And as far as this one goes – avoidable. Completely.