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with an entire galaxy of glitterati  - from mega stars and super stars to the just-arrived starlets and the outdated and near-expiry ones to showcase what it claims 'Indian' films to world audience.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!"

Try licking fingers in a 5-star hotel

Over the weekend I went out for dinner with a few of my Indian friends. Apart from the fab menu and an even more hip ambience there were spoons, forks and knives, too. And my gourmet tolerance took a ride.

With all due respect and love to my SubContinent brethren, I dedicate this piece to you all.

This is my nth experience when domestic talk and holiday plans switched over to Geneva and Las Vegas once inside a 5-star environment. Wonder why. After all we are there to eat. And eat by chewing and tearing using the same set of yellowish, cavity-filled molars and tea-stained canines.

It doesn't matter if you are hanging out with childhood friends who've seen you in chaddis, I'm convinced beyond the realm of questioning that once you are holding a fork and a knife to spoon your hunger, you only  talk stocks and conferences.

Invariably, the conversation shifts from school fees and hypertension to suits and tuxedos of husbands.

Yes. It is women, who love announcing their self-conferred status. So what if the hubbies haven't seen the inside of a Taj or a Oberoi or Emirates Palace even - they have been on virtual trips to Copenhagen definitely. The once-in-a-blue-moon meeting with a superior becomes "Oh! my husband is always attending conferences around the world...", accompanied with a drawling demonstrative sigh, as if they get to do the act even only up mid-air!

The best part is these are the same local sleuths who love licking their fingers schchum, schchum, schchum, when others around are busy manipulating the innocent weapons in hand. Or whose spaghetti gets sucked in deep down their oesophagus threatening to take the fork inside as well.

Shut your mouths, idiots!

The simple act of closing the mouth will not only ensure you bite that pasta at the desired end but also help you balance the fork between the left fingers, too. Not to mention, it would be a great relief to the men folk (those mamma's men who are pot-bellied, blurping and ****ing) who could take care of their sound effects - and save the others on the table from the eeew, eeew and icky factor.

Why do Indian men make terrible eaters? If they bite into an apple then the juice gets sprayed out like coloured water from toy guns of kids; when they drink tea, it is akin to starting a bike and if it's coffee (especially a freshly brewed cuppa) then God save you from a vehicle without a silencer. Even the mundane daal-chawal and roti is eaten with a vengence in the name of relishing. The ceremony of each bite involves tearing a big portion of roti, folding it and scooping in the daal all the while the tougue hanging out like man's faithful friend until ultimately the five fingers carry the catch of the day to place it hurriedly amid the gluey mucilage with a shruuuum...

Even freedom comes @

Have you noticed how you fail to enjoy things that come free? Be it  free of cost or effort. Anything availed free will haunt you for the rest of your life in some way.

Avail anything price-free and watch unpleasant thing/s following or a hidden sting piercing through you at a time in the future, when you would have long-forgotten what you even availed of.

Consider these..
Groceries - The fewer the currency notes you exchange the quicker the vegetables/fruits rot in your fridge.

Apparel - Not brands - the everyday middle-class stuff if picked up for their rates rather than fabric, then you see their colour run or hem torn even before you've quenched your desire to flaunt in them.

More seriously...
Jobs - If you are offered a salary more than what you actually deserve, then surely you'll get to see less of your family or worse still be made a scapegoat for your superior's mistakes.

Favours - If you seek of someone, rest assured you will have to compromise at the most demanding of personal times.

Most profound...
Education - If you avail of free school education (consider the government-run institutes in the SubContinent), then you'll be free the rest of your adult life!

Worse still...
Degrees/certificate - If you were to get degrees or certificates free of the effort required, then rest assured you will be accountable for others' lives. Consider the fake pilot licences, fake surgeons and teachers' cases battled out in the corridors of power in India alone.

More examples later...

Thankfully, poultry owners and farmers do not require certificates to get about their businesses.

Brains come free in our package. Let's use it to our whims and not trade it with @. Lest we become 'dom' and free - a lethal combination!

Stinky secrets

My experience as early as in high school taught me that superstitions can be silly, screwy and even stinky. The last classification I had forgotten until I met an ambitious colleague at the workplace recently.

As for my personal tyrst with superstitions, it began and ended with mynas. One for sorrow, 2 for joy, 3 for letter, 4 for boy, 5 for silver, 6 for gold, 7 for stories yet untold, 8 for a wish, 9 for a kiss; 10 for something never to be missed...

Know not when the myna myth built a nest inside me. As teenagers we loved looking out for myna pairs in college. And if we saw one then hurriedly looked for its partner or alternatively looked for a crow. The belief - a crow can take away the sorrow of the lone myna from affecting you. What logic!

However, it was only mynas in pairs or sorrowful singletons. Never dared a kiss and I didn't know what I missed. Finally, when the smooch-time struck, I lacked patience to go looking for nine chocolatey birds up in the sky. Because...I will reveal no more. Strictly censor personal stuff.

However, in general, when it comes to superstitions the most private of stuffs tend to call the shots.

In one of our math periods in Class X, my friend shrieked 'I knew it', on getting her test papers. While, all heads turned towards her, she revealed in whispers to me..."You know this is the 6th day I've worn the same pantie...Whenever I wear this I get good marks."

But why 6 days in a row, for Pete's sake?

"Didn't Ma'am say we'll get the papers on Monday. Have been waiting for it every day. How can I risk changing? No babaa!"

Stinky! Phew.

I had almost forgotten this incident, until I made friends with a  colleague in office. She's a self-confessed ambitious and over-driven workaholic, striking the same pose every time she enters the conference room for the weekly meetings.

Pulls the chair with the right hand. Transfers the file and pen from her right arm onto her left palm and places them on the table. Picks at the strap of her bag from the right forearm and keeps it on the floor on the left side and walks around the chair to enter from the right. Thrusts her chin up and shakes the hair off her shoulder as she lowers herself into the chair.

Then she adjusts diagonally in the chair with one butt lifted and the leg corresponding to that side of her arse crossed over the opposite leg. She calls it the 'commanding position'. "It shows confidence," she says. All through the meeting her nose and chin perform the attitude-throws and palms dismiss unwanted proposals but the propped-up section of her behind remains static as if fixed with glue in thin air - no matter how long the meeting runs.

Am sure there's a pantie-secret to it. On meeting days probably she jumps into and manages to pull up some decades-old, ill-fitting undie for things to go her way! I bet.

BTW, I was too curious and did try the 'commanding posture' at home. Shit, it hurts. That's what I call a real pain in the arse!

Sick of Osama and Obama...now must bear the dog, too

One man is finished. Got his share of hoopla even in death. The other man has done it. Has received his share of euology. 

Only when I thought we've moved on, a dog began stalking us.

Limits!

The media seems determined to keep bin Laden alive. It's almost a week since the most-wanted terrorist was lowered at the Arabian Sea, and still prime-time minutes and reels of newsprint are being wasted on him.

With nothing substantial coming off discussions on where the US-Pak relations stand following the aftermath or the US' modus operandi, the hot topic now is whether a dog was involved in the operation.

Its breed, its skills, its temperament, its training, its intelligence, its agility...oh my! just stops short of its poo!

As if the dog's vital statistics will reveal all that Obama refuses to say.

Do laymen care if the Pakistan President was aware of the attack or their intelligence were unaware. Or whether bin Laden's end is the beginning of second-term dreams for the other?

What people really would like to know is if Al Qaeda will explode in their neighbourhood. In the name of revenge will we be the next victims? Can anyone gurantee our lives?

Well, world leaders echoed.."with Osama bin Laden gone it is not the end to terrorism, the battle continues". Thank you for the wise words.

Now can we leave the Os behind and move on? We need to take care of ourselves.