It's about time...

I started this blog long time back without much of an idea that what it will be about and how I will sustain it. I used to post here interesting stuff I've found elsewhere which I would like to share. (I will still be doing the same)

Over the years, I've started using Facebook to share the things I like, with my circle of friends. But the problem with Facebook is that its not permanent. And its so much crowded. And what I would like to say gets buried under the millions of posts by friends who are sharing just about anything n everything (koi joke share kar raha tu koi music video tu koi qurani aayat).

Now without confusing you guys (and myself) more, I would to re-inaugurate my blog, with the aim that I'll be sharing 'more permanent' and serious stuff here, which will be here to read for anyone (and for myself) to read (and reread) as the time goes by.

It would also be interesting to see how my thoughts changes over the months/years about various things :)

An open letter to Aamir Khan

I just saw the TZP trailer for the 18th time, and before you release the new trailer, I would have probably watched it at least 40 more times. I watched the Mangal Pandey trailers about 200 times before the film released.

As someone correctly said on your blog, in times where every filmmaker wants his heroes and heroines to wear Prada and Gucci, and wants to shoot his films in nothing less than London and New York (as if Indians in India have no interesting lives), you dare to make a film about children.

You probably know that children-centric films have not had a good time in our industry of late. Nanhe Jaisalmer and Chain Khuli Ki Main Khuli bombed recently. Even the ambitious Raju Chacha with big stars tanked not too long back.

But, of course, when have you thought of all that. Following norms has never been your cup-of-tea.

You made Lagaan when cricket and a period setting were both taboos in our industry.

You worked with Ashutosh Gowarikar when he had 2 flops behind him and was rejected by one and all. You worked with Rakeysh Mehra when he had only a flop Aks in his resume. And on both occasions you made probably the best film in the history of Indian Cinema.

You refused invites from Koffee with Karan, a show celebrities would give their right hand to appear in (or may be the leg as they'd need the hand for Koffee); yet you showed up at some small talk-show at NDTV.

You don't give interviews to the paparazzi, yet you spend over an hour video chatting with your fans on your website, answering all their questions.

You don't go for the stupid dime-a-dozen award shows, but you went to voice the misery of the troubled farmers in the Narmada Valley.

While other actors made 3 films a year, you gave 3 years to one film at the height of your carrier.

While other actors are all over the media praising their films and do their best to keep media happy, you did not make a single meida appearance before RDB just because you were angry with the media. Wow!

While other actors are endorsing everything from undergarments to hair-oil to chyawanprash, your endorsements can be counted on one finger - 3.

You have been the perennial trend setter of this age. Others followed, but never came close.

You sang 'Aati Kya Khandala' which became the anthem of the loafers countrywide. 'Apun Bola' (SRK) and 'Aye Shivani' (Sanjay Dutt) followed but left were hardly given a second listening.

You went to the border to entertain our soldiers. Others followed suit.

You started the whole trend of 'looking the part'. Today, every actor seems to want to look different in every movie.

And well, you started a blog. Last I heard there were blogs by Anil Kapoor and SRK.

But in spite of that Aamir, or more appropriately, because of that Aamir, you are truly the country's greatest superstar. You may not have the label of the 'King', or the temples with your statue in it, but you are indeed the greatest force in this industry.

How else would you explain the euphoria that surrounds your mere signing a film?

How else would you explain RDB being a blockbuster without you making a single public appearance for its publicity?

How else would you explain the craze to find out how Aamir Khan looks in his next film?

How else would you explain the fact that the caps, rings, or mufflers you wear grace the apparel stores nationwide? The barbers throughout the country need to learn how to make your current hairstyle if they want to stay in business? The lines you say are probably in the lexicons of every film-loving boy in the country? And the funny part is you never make an effort for any of the three to happen.

Now I hear Aamir that you are shaving your head for your new film. When has that been done before (Akshaye in Salaam-E-Ishq but that wasn't intentional)? Not in my living memory! The barbers of India would have it easy this time.

So Aamir Hussain Khan, take a bow! You are the greatest masterpiece in the museum of the Hindi Film Industry.

In the meantime, I'll try to go into hypersleep mode as I really can't wait for December 21, the day I get to see you in a Mohawk on the big screen.

Yours truly

Bollywood Byter

Citizen of India’s blog can be accessed at http://bollywoodbyte.wordpress.com/2007/10/12/an-open-letter-to-aamir-khan

Chhoti Si Baat

Watched Basu Chatterjee's Chhoti Si Baat (1975) the other day starring Vidya Sinha & Amol Palekar in the lead roles. Its a love story of a shy accountant who is in love with a woman but afraid to express it due to lack of confidence. He tries everything to overcome this problem but no success. Later on, he comes to know of a Col. who guides people in such situations. The Col. gives him many tips to boost his confidence. His training at Col.'s is throughly enjoyable. One of his many lesson's is:

"World is divided into two kinds of people. Winners & Loosers. Bottom is crowded but there is always room at the top."

How very true. But I at times wonder... is wining everything. At times people win by loosing. Aap bhi soochiayay... main bhi soochat hoon :)

I guess everyone an learn from this movie.

Agent Smith/Oracle on Human Beings in The Matrix Revolutions

Smith/Oracle: Why, Mr. Anderson, why? Why, why do you do it? Why, why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting for something, for more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is, do you even know? Is it freedom or truth, perhaps peace - could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson, vagaries of perception. Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself. Although, only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson, you must know it by now! You can't win, it's pointless to keep fighting! Why, Mr. Anderson, why, why do you persist?
Neo: Because I choose to.

Agent Smith describes Human Beings in The Matrix

I'd like to share a revelation during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. And the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure.

Question of the Day

Why there isn't any new DIVINE religion for the past 1400 years?

Question of the Day

Why miracles do not happen nowadays?

Question of the Day

Question everything, including this Maxim

Words of Wisdom

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have scrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness - that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that the saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought and, though it might seem too good for human life, this is what - at last - I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

Bertrand Russell

Quote of the day

"Live amongst people in such a manner that if you die they weep over you and if you are alive they crave for your company." Ali Ibn-e-Abi Talib (A.S)

John Lennon's Imagine

IMAGINE

Imagine there's no Heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one

Lennon described the song as "an anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic song, but because it's sugar-coated, it's accepted."

In the UK, the song is regularly voted at or near the top of polls to find the greatest song or single of all time, as in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Singles (number two being Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and three being The Beatles Hey Jude). Rolling Stone magazine voted "Imagine" the third greatest song of all time.