IIFA showcases another great Indian divide on global stage

Indians cry hoarse when Hollywood directors show our slums. They are damaging India's image; it's in bad taste; this is not the real India...Headlines scream out, channels pan out and film critics mince no words.

Then what do we do about it? Watch those movies, shout for sometime and move on until someone else comes along. But, of late, as our actors are crossing over more frequently than before, we take heart and say, 'yes, we have arrived'! IIFA also seems to announce the same and further sooth the Indian ego.

Set up in 2000, it has been globe-trotting with an entire galaxy of glitterati  - from mega stars and super stars to the just-arrived starlets and the outdated and near-expiry ones to showcase what it claims 'Indian' films to world audience. Kudos to the academy for naming the awards aptly - The International Indian Film Academy Awards!

The IIFA act raises two pertinent questions - do we feel hurt or insulted when foreign directors show the poor shades of India or is it an inferiority complex in us, trying to compare ourselves to Hollywood? Else why should only the Bollywood glitz be presented to the world.

Bollywood may be the face of Indian cinema but it definitely does not represent Indian cinema at large. There are hoardes of excellent films being made across the country each year, not to forget the versatile actors in other languages.

When India has no dearth of talent, why showcase only Hindi movies and Bollywood actors? It's time IIFA presents the real mosaic of country's film fraternity if the academy needs to be true to its name.

But that will take a lot of courage because old habits die hard. If the Bollywood bandwagon aka IIFA brainstormers care to change themselves they can begin by taking the most obvious cue out from their dream land. There are no mega stars and super stars in Hollywood. Only actors or artists. Think of what India would be sans stars!

Aping can be done either clumsily or with elan. If the 'Bollywood Oscar Academy' believes only Bollywood glittereti can be compared to Hollywood sheen, so be it. Let the Kapoors and Bachchans and Khans endorse a few regional picks and let the world see the true dimensions and reach of the true Indian cinema. And to begin with stop referring to regional films as the 'poorer cousins of Bollywood'.

Sadly, IIFA is putting yet another great Indian divide on the global stage - 'The glitz divide'! As if we didn't have enough already. Beginning with the Aryan-Dravidian divide; the urban-rural divide; the north-south divide, the rich-poor divide...the list only seems to get longer as the nation progresses. Little wonder foreigners film our country and describe it to their whim and fly out with impunity.

Pippa Middleton's bum chums

Check your IQ guys. It needs some urgent rebooting. World matters have  taken a jaw-dive in the last two months. 

You may be excused for not knowing where the hell is the United Kingdom.  But you sure face gallows of shame if you do not know where Pippa  Middleton's asset lies.

Pippa went on a diet; Pippa does pilates four days a week; Pippa has broken up with long-time flame; Pippa hugged former colleague goodnight at 2am; Pippa looked soiled but ravishing in shorts after the marathon; Pippa hired £10,000-an-hour chopper to jet into a charity show; Pippa's moving base to Paris...the list is never-ending. 

The au courant world media seems to be boldly competing with one another in pom-poming the royal kin's activities as if their coverage will dare her to bare it all.

Well, the male folk have always been bum chums. Nothing surprising there. Jennifer Lopez was gazed at more than watched or heard. Then came Kim Kardashian with hers. When JLo and KK were peacefully holding the testesterone-flowing men to a deuce, in walked the Prince holding Kate on April 29.

And since that day the world seems to be unsettled. Not because the future king decided to settle down, rather his sis-in-law's 'that' dress which has stirred up minds beyond imaginations can fathom.

What's baffling is her derriere has made the fairer sex weaker in their knees as much as it has sent pulses soaring among the beefed-up lot. In fact the ages-old unwritten fact - women can't stand their ilk - is in the process of being revised. The Princess's sister has achieved the unthinkable! She is uniting her sex. And to say her pilate-sculptured backside is doing the trick is no doubt wacky but a wee bit dr...yly (oops!) tacky.

I googled for more anatomical analysis and the statistics revealed was least surprising. Guess this is how laymen draw strength to tackle the daily challenge of getting off their arses to go about and earn a living.

PS: The latest news doing the rounds...Britons queue up to get their plastic arses to match Pippa's arse. LIMITS!!!

When did Baba Ramdev change from saffron robes to salwar kameez?

A maverick yoga guru who churns his stomach in public to attract followers who only dream of getting a glimpse of the ground underneath their belly tried (or rather is trying) his hand at calling the shots to 'cleanse' Hindustan.

I wish he gave it up now as the issue has anyway snowballed and has gone beyond his control. Instead, he can use his discarded dhothi to his advantage - the robes he shed in a desperate attempt to evade arrest.

He apparently disguised as a woman and crouched amid females in the massive pandal before he was discovered and chauffeured into a chopper and chased outside the borders of the capital.

Now that would have been the longest of asanas he would have ever done. Hope he breathed out after the jump. For he sure looked tired and worn out on his arrival in Haridwar early next morning. And surprisingly in a white salwar kameez!

While the whole nation - from politicians and social activists to Bollywood stars and the aam janta - have condemned the way his followers were fumigated and expressed shock over how and why he was was air-lifted, I'm interested in when he changed.

Forget his ideals... there are enough and more people discussing that at present all over the SubContinent. Where did he shed his saffron robe? A woman has come forward to say she helped her guru escape by giving him her clothes.

Now, if the strength of his followers is any testimony then it will sure be auctioned for a million dollars. And he can display the amount in cash in another pandal to prove his integrity and teach those who have stashed away theirs in foreign banks as to how to do it!

Well, the truth be said...he has, indeed, stirred up such a storm in secular India that the nation's very democratic status is being questioned.

While the anti-corruption points he raised are valid and needs to be tackled at the earliest, his adamance on ignoring the practicality of their implementation raises questions of his very intention about raising the topic.

Again why such pompous a demonstration? Even Anna Hazare stayed hungry for several days. He not only steered clear of controversy but also has set the system into motion to achieve the changes he's been fighting for.

But the political guru seems to be the better pied piper. Simply because his magic flute seems to be louder as it has reached a wider cross-section of people.

So what if the government is in trouble or if more public money will be wasted with another Parliament session debating nothing else but shouting ba ba ba. Or should it even matter if he has given rise to a volatile and unhealthy practice of individuals holding the nation to ransom!

They have both helped laymen wake up from their conscious slumber.

So who's the better anti-corruption leader? Anna Hazare or Baba Ramdev.

Guess Shobha De has the last word. She tweeted..."Asking netas: Baba Ramdev or Anna Hazare. Who's the real leader, is like that old debate: Sush or Ash, who's the real pageant winner? Pointless!"