What if...

What a weird movie...yeah..I am talking of the movie, "Yun hota to kya hota", whose english translation is the name of this piece. True, Ayesha Takia was there (to whom since God has endowed with more than enough and hence we guys just cant have enough of her :), Konkana Sharma, Dina Pathak, Paresh Rawal, Subhashini Mulay, Irfan Khan....such great actors were there but still the movie was just weird...But one thing which I really liked is the title of the movie...which asks the basic question...What if?? What if this had happened ..that happened..or even more pertinent..what if this had not happened...or that had not happened...What if I had scored two marks more there...what if I had answered that qeustion in the interview like that...what if i had not sneaked out of the hostel to have the first puff....what if i had not acted like I at times did ....what if i was more sensible and prudent....what if life would have been different...in a different context with a different set of players in it... Every now and then we make choices.. we choose between alternatives...and take one road instead of other and they lead us somewhere....at times we r better off and at times we r worse...and when the outcome is the later we just stand there and inadvertently think...What if???...Ofcourse thats a different story that thinking doesn't help:)

The blasts and after that....

Bombs rocked Mumbai on tuesday..as per the reports 200 people are dead and close to 700 are injured. Applying simple mathematics, it boils down to 112 people, either dead or injured per blast or per train compartment. Now, knowing bby trains that does seem to be understatement, but thats besides the point. Fact remains that the blasts were a very unfortunate incident. However what interests me are the couple of incidents associated with it:

• We the people: For all the people in Bby, lemme ask u a qst: How was wednesday morning for u? I mean the day after the blasts. Everything was normal...so damn normal..barring more police on the roads. We went to office and after the initial 30 mins of discussions on the previous day's discussion, it was business as usual for us. We went for dinner n even there is was nothing abnormal. The city simply didnt curb its speed or stop. People say that's the spirit of the city, it doesnt stop. But aint that also an manifestation of our indifference...of our "i dont care what happens arnd me"...Its kind of disturbing but then thats fact. Deep within we simply dont bother whats happening. Life goes on....
• Wrong startegy: (sorry...but the consulting bug is getting the better of me) There is a lot of talk going arnd about which terrorist organization did it and all that stuff but one question (which stems from the earlier point) is that whats the point of targeting Bby. I think that the end objective of any such attack is not to kill people but bring about destability. Killing is only a means to the end and not the end itself and thats where any attack on Bby fails. It jsut doesnt trigger anything. The city returns to normalcy is just no time. I am sure that had such attacks happened in any other city, the situation would be much different. For eg: bandhs and protest rallies, if it were Cal???
• The Media: There's something terribly wrong with the media in India. Let me ask a basic qeustion, "why make it so gory?" I remember seeing the coverage of 9/11 and despite the scale of destruction, there wasnt one corpse shown and here are our couterparts, focusing and refocusing on corpses, blown away/destroyed body parts, faces dripping in blood and what not. I mean whats the point. Does it serve any purpose? It doesnt even increase the eyeballs hits.cummon we are normal people and the last thing we want to see is some gory pictures.
• The good samaritans: I came to know of the HSBC incident where a trader died in the blasts. But it was very heartening to find out the way HSBC came forward to help and Ms. Kidwai offering multifold superannuation and a job offer to the child of the employee. Great u say...not every place is bad...Its really heartening to find out that not all companies view their employees as a pair of hands and some grey matter who should take their pay slip and fuck off; some places are good....

Why have a kid...as per TV

This idiot box has turned all the more idiot of late...right from showing interviews of movie stars who describe their and their friends' character in a movie as.."Hum log 4 jaan hai...aur basically sab ekdam harami hai" to all those headlines in news channel about how Mika kissed Rakhi Sawant and why there wasnt any element of male chivalry and opinion polls on what could have been done better..u can expect the most bizzare of things to come on the TV...so far chalta hai but what do u do when u suddenly stop your surfing at a channel showing a panel discussion of doctors on the issue of marriage and children. Before I proceed further, let me get it very clear that I have immense regard for doctors. True, they mint money like crazy but then u cant escape the fact that nothing like a good doctor at the time of pain. Good from the professional as well as personal point of view. (Personal because u trust them and u wldnt want to be taken for a ride.) Now coming to my original point of the panel discussion. Imagine what as per the discussion was the biggest reason for having a kid. "Kids give couples a reason to talk for 25 years after the initial euphoria over marriage has subsided and hence save marriages" Now as a corrolary this means that: 1. "Couples without kids dont have anything to talk and since they dont have anything to talk about, the marriage collapses over time". 2. "Couples with kids talk about children all the time which saves the marriage from collapsing" Gentleman! what about childless couples. Do all of them break up. And also why do u need a child to create a topic to discuss? As it is, if a couple cant find any topic to talk, which in effect means that there aint any common topic or they are not comfy sharing it with the partner, it will as it is break up-child or no child. A child only furthers the intersection set between a couple's interests; it doesnt create it. Further, children are a natural milestone in the journey of life. U have children becuase thats the thing to do and not because their marriage is in jeopardy. Remember all those old Hindi movies in which the prospective grandpa said," Bete, wansh chalana hai, mujhe marne se pehle apne pote ka chehra dikha de" Ever found any married person saying "Hey, I am fearing that my marriage will collapse. Let me have a kid. He will come as a knight in shining armour to save my marriage". Common, give the kid a break. He is yet to be conceived and you are bringing him/her in conjugal issues.