4 Reasons not to Watch Peepli Live

I usually have very high expectations from an Aamir Khan's Flick, which was further reinforced by movies like TZP and 3 idiots, but peepli live to say the least has been disappointing. Here are some of reasons which i found quite bizzare in movie :

• Is it Satire?
  

Well while seeing the promos of the movie, i got the feeling that the movie would be a satire on the plight of the farmers, who are so helpless that they are left with no other option than taking their own lives .Treatment of the movie was certainly not in line with that. Yes, the situation can be shown in a humorous way, but then director should have cared about a thin line between the fun and the message he want to convey by the movie. Suicide by farmers are a serious issue, and in the movie it was ridiculed more or so as a resort of extracting money from the government. They can take a leaf out of the book from "Munnabhai MBBS" which had a very delicate balance of emotional and comedy scenes. In this movie, there is hardly a poignant scene at which you feel moved.

• Media as a Joker

Alright , we have several movies depicting the act of media as a bunch of paid jokers. If my memory serves right " phir bhi dil hai hindustani" was based on the sensationalism of media, and there are few other movies too. More than that, we in our daily lives , experience this hoopla for media. So, apart from 15 minutes of entertainment, there was nothing more in the media circus shown in the movie. Media is the fourth altar of democracy, and there were instances where media had played its role in a very responsible way. It could have been much better if media had been depicted as a responsible agent. May be it has served as a model for the prevalent media in the country

• Acting by 'Natha'

Despite all the hype by Natha, the acting was sub-standard. The expressions were not there, body language was not apt. In place of looking as a despised farmer, he looked like a minor caught in a soup. At this moment , i can hardly recollect any substantial Dialogue by him. Most of the dialogues are given to Raghubir Yadav, who no doubt is a good actor, but then it became an overkill. I sincerely believe that much work could had been done on his character.

• Abuses in the Movie

okk, i agree to the point that this type of language is common in villages. But i sincerely believe that, director had been over-enthusiastic in using the flowery language. Words like G***d, Be****d, M*****d galore in the movie. Supposed to be a family entertainment movie, it places lot of people in a very uncomfortable situation. I also found it the tough way, went with my aunt and mom, and constantly had to fix my eyes on screen during the movie to avoid eye contact.

Movie is good, but then its not according to the status we associate with Aamir Khan. He had set the the standards high, and this movie really looks half-cooked. At best an attempt to score over the prevailing issues of ailing farmers and agriculture in the country. In my opinion. this is not worth a movie to watch spending your hard-earned bucks.

Why Facebook ?

Many will detest this note, because it's antithetical to the concept of 'Facebooking'. Status updates and more recently notes have engulfed the interests of all and sundry. My love with facebook started with some desired and strange applications like predictions, lover of the day, friend of the day, ideal job et al. These applications asked some questions and popped the results. Even if there was no connection, I thought I've achieved something. I'm sure same is the case with others. People feel happy if they see something extraordinarily nice about themselves. For me, it was a confidence booster. It's hard to acknowledge though. It also works as a proxy if not enough friends are online and thus keeps us busy.

To increase the networks of friends, Facebook suggests names randomly. Mind which feels hesitation in requesting friendship, thought of loosening the shackles gradually. FB is preferred over Orkut because FB is a broadcast network unlike Orkut which came across as a point to point connection. The more friends you have, the more people you reach out to. Wall updates can be seen on all friends' news board. Orkut implied a concept of scribbling on the other person's scrapbook.

The habit of lingering on this social network is effectuated by the lack of result oriented work and worthy substitutes. I don't know about other B schools, but this one is surely hooked on to FB. People release unique status updates and there you see a series of likes and comments within no time. This brings us to analyze the dearth of student activities which has propelled deviation on to the web world. As common in every B school, student managed clubs and committees are active in the college. But most prefer to ignore them due to reasons best known to them. Academics as usual, attract little attention. Credit must be given to high frequency of exams which resist us to delve deeper into understanding of the subjects. We tend to behave like machines. Input -> Process -> Output with least retention. This is what I feel, respect to those who have managed to learn regularly.

By garnering applauds on writing a witty remark or by creating a thought provoking video/pic; we feel belongingness to the FB world. This world is 'real like' but not real. After all, nothing has replaced the intricacy of analog human interaction. Try executing a project without meeting a single time and you would know. We are still bound to excel using age old methods of convincing naysayers through table discussions and spoken presentations. Hooking on to FB undermines our focus on the what should be the strength of a modern day manager. Plain confidence does not make up for paucity of facts and analysis.

How to use FB to one's advantage ? I've tried few things. During the summer break, games like Scrabble kept me indulged. I hope I've improved my vocabulary to some extent(God knows!). Creating pages and raising support for causes justifies our passion. 'It's my Earth' page was created as part of a contest organized by one of the IIMs. I'd decided to continue with the initiative, though it demanded only one investment - time. Lots of friends have accepted it. Thanks folks! The idea was to change the way our mind thinks about the environment. Believe me, I can't tolerate wastage of electricity now.

Game(s) People Play

Smoke came out from the pistol...sprinters started to run for their lives in a 100 m race with crowd getting behind them...they just got pass the 50m mark... suddenly the race track collapsed... and i saw my cell phone it was 0345 AM in morning ....!!! Thank god... it was a dream..

With so many stories unwinding around the CWG'10.. i am certainly very anxious about it. Do not be surprised if swimmers find algae in the swimming pool, or one of the football just cant arrive to stadium . because of the traffic jam.. most possibly because 2 cars have brushed each other..and the owner of those vehicles decide to settle the matter on the road itself.

Being in NCR for almost 3 years.. one thing i am pretty much sure about.. you can bring CWG to Delhi.. u cant take Delhiite mentality away from here... and believe me for most of the people the brazen social class of Delhi is an unpleasant experience at least in the beginning. Now the news channels are running rhetoric episodes on the dismal state of affairs.. and any tom dick and harry is giving expert comments here. As to put one of my friend's comment " Jisne aaj tak ghar mein shaadi bhi nahi karwayi.. wo bata raha hai ki CWG kaise karane chaiye".

Yes we are very concerned about the image of India.. by the way what is the image of India!!! A developing nation whose stock market is outperforming the rest of world, no matter few 100s of farmers commit suicide every year, or is a nation where people run crusades over Sania marrying Shoaib.. while youths are murdered in the name of honor killing. A nation of billion + people could not manage to create a decent football team... a nation where the gaps between the haves and have-nots is increasing day by day. A country where a chief minister can brazenly defend its communal minister or a state when traveling by a train demands an insurance!!!...

Anyways, we have to protect the image of nation, because various foreigners will visit the country. Its like putting a nice curtain on the door, so that people feel that everything is well and beautiful inside. But the curtain is now started having holes.. where people can peep to see the divide between India and 'Bharat'.

No i am in no way recruited by that psycho 'Mani Shankar Aiyar" who is praying to rain gods to unleash havoc and destruction upon the commonwealth games.. well its almost praying for a death of a person... i seriously wish that games go on smoothly..coz once u had taken up a commitment.. you should follow it tenaciously.. but the buck should not stop here.. these games ought to play a bigger role in developing a sports culture in the country.

P.S. As per Swapnil.. we indians are masters of doing things at the last moment.. so when India wakes up on the inaugural day of CWG... they will see a picture perfect games... Japanese may have invented "JIT".. we will put into rigorous test here

B-School Lexicon

In my 1.25 years of so called "B-School" Life, i observed certain phrases which was like gospels for the people living out here , so this is one of my humble attempt to mention some of those as to pay tribute to this wonderful and innovative B-School Lexicon

1. Bull-Shit : We, the people, in b-school somehow feel that it is more fashionable and kool to swear in english although there are various hindi substitutes available to that. So, one of the most common used word is bull-shit. When i first heard the word, i was a bit amused. Traditionally, in india cow-dung is popular, but why bull-shit is so revered in b-school parlance. Be it teacher, be it students , whenever they have to ridicule something, the first word which comes into mind is "bull-shit". I am seriously thinking of watching a bull shitting carefully, and may be attach a photo for you people also, so that we can demystify the code.

2. Fuckin : If there has to be a word , which is most abused in any language, it has to be this word. The power of this word is awesome. it could be noun, adverb, helping verb and adjective. There is no scenario which cant be explained by this word. Paper was "fuckin" tough, i am "fuckin'ly happy"... The usages are infinite, from the most momentous occasion to the most pissed of occasion, this word will never leave you alone. ( And oh Yeah !! there was a band performance by the college students, and they are using 'fuckin' almost 5 times in a minute, so no college song is complete without it )

3. It Depends: The beauty ( or u may say curse ) of MBA education is that seldom there are right answers. This helps students a lot, when they were basking in their blissful ignorance. Whenever you caught off-guard by a teacher , asking a question, the safest answer is "it depends". Coz there is no situation that cant be moulded as favorable or unfavorable. So basic tenet of MBA , don't be sure on what you are doing, and when you can not convince people .. confuse them..

4. "Case ki summary bata de " : We, the people, in B-school are always very hard pressed for time. Be it for playing tennis, watching movies , doing bakar and ohh yeah sleeping ( wait a minute.. i heard a lot about sleep deprivation in B-Schools.. make it very clear.. IMT never sleeps.. but IMTians do...) , that we hardly get time to do other stuffs. It seems that our professors do not understand our precarious situation. Heap of Case studies ( Typical HBS one .. with pages>20 ) keep on mounding in our rooms, and 99% of the times, we could not get time to go through them. So, what to do in class ??... Thankfully 1-2 holy souls had read the case, and before 5 minutes to class... the common request is " Bhai .. Please case ki summary bata de.."

5. "Meri Proxy Laga dena " : When i was a young kid, i was told by my parents that god is omnipresent, and they look at every good or evil deed of us. After coming to b-school i realized that we mortals can also possess same powers. People could be present at more than 1 place at a single moment of time. Giving and requesting for proxy is one of the most holy ritual of b-school. The bonding between "proxy-bretheren" is unfathomable to comprehend. Sometimes, i feel afraid that people may not get affected by "multiple-personality disorder", not even knowing which name they are representing. Any ways, this is the blood for the life in a B-School, else you would find a long queue in front of prof's office looking for their attendance.

6. 'Lunch/Dinner mein kya hai ' : when i first went for higher studies, i was surprised that why that dining place is called mess. Then somebody told me that anything you get there would be a 'complete mess' , and that's why this place is unequivocally called mess. To give credits, our college has a good mess, and a hard-working mess committee too ( which sends menu for a fortnight with due diligence..). But do not get misguided by the items on menu, you may find a helluva of difference in what was written on menu, and what you are tasting right now. As of now, the favorite item is rajma.. which i think they boiled for on month in advance. So, every time , some body asks "Dinner mein kya hai" he is hoping against hope.. that today he may get some good thing to eat. The safest answers to questions are "Chhole aur Rajma".. There is 90% probability that you may be right !!!


Disclaimer: All the views expressed by author are personal and experienced in personal capacity. No offense is intended to the mess-connoisseurs, who find it best place to eat, or to the people of "yo-Gang" for whom 'fuckin' is second name for god. Also i might have missed some of the key-terms in my analysis.Please feel free

'A happiness'

A wave of happiness swept the whole IMT yesterday when almost everybody who took any level of CFA cleared it. Everybody was happy for himself or any dear. Feelings of the people sending the congos were really overwhelming. The charm in their minds could actually be made out from the words they uttered. Really happiness is such a flash which can indulge everybody around. Even a bit of that flash can refresh your minds, body etc. of anything stale or bad located in any corner of your mind. I sometimes think why this happiness is so momentary. Why this happiness does not last that long.

I think happiness, sadness or any feeling you come across indulges your mind for some time and then resides in your mind itself. It resides there as a layer. These feelings, layer after layer, make the unconscious mind. These feelings stay there as they are and last really long.

To search any feeling that is there in your mind like a layer, you will have to first uncover the layers above that feeling. Beneath, you will find the feeling you desired for. Once found, you can do anything with that feeling like you can play, enjoy, make a fun of it, etc. Once done, it will automatically go again in your heart but will stay at the top of the stack of feelings. So the next time you want to search that feeling you will not have to go that deeper. You will be able to find that somewhere at the top. That is a wonderful way to keep your happinesses fresh.

This way you can enjoy a happiness multiple times and reach the conclusion that happiness is not a flash that just sweeps across. It is something which lasts really long. It is only that we don’t know where it stays.