Breeding Lucidity

This year I decided to take a different route. Usually, my birthday reminders start well before a month prior to the big event! This time around I just did not feel like it. I did make all effort to remind the people close to me about it, personally. However, FB remained oblivious. It had many other birthdays and events to remember, so I figured I'd give it a break this year. Honestly, I've no reasons to why I decided to do so. One fine day I felt like removing the date from my FB page. However, I figured an appraisal of the year gone by would be a good way to wrap up year 27. Yes, I turned 27 this 4th.

The year has been quite eventful. Last birthday brought with it the promise to spend a few months out on another continent. It was a wonderful experience. I caught up with people I was not sure if I would meet again so soon. A welcome break from everything that had become a routine in my life. A change was wonderful, especially after the dreaded comprehensive examinations. Thanks to my parents, I had crossed international borders at a very early age. But then I wanted to do it without burning a hole in anyone's pocket. And in that sense, it was a dream come true. Further, I was the only one left in the family who hadn't seen snow. So that's another stricken off my list.

The next few months went in preparing for the thesis proposal. September 12th was the date. I was now technically a step away from becoming a Fellow. Despite understanding that each of the steps in the programme so far have been nothing but mirages, I fell for this one too. But it is good to get done with it. I am told the next one is the real deal! I hope I get to experience it soon!

The biggest thing I have had to grapple with this year has been to discern the distinction between the things I should hold on to and others that I should learn to let go. It is the question of balancing perseverance and foolhardiness. I started the year letting go of a lot of things that had turned bitter. I realised that my tolerance levels would not change the aftertaste. The only thing I could do was to leave the scene behind and find something worth tolerating. It was one of the best decisions I have made. It was disappointing that things could change the way they did. But then as the cliched statement goes, change is the only permanent affair in this world. I wish I could extend the same detachment to a few other things in this world. Easier said than done.

It almost seemed that I was trying to make up for that voluntary detachment by holding on too tightly for the rest of the year. That is where I am at right now. Last year wasn't that bad. I guess I should start this one the same way as the last one. Letting go of year 27 and trying to get a hold on year 28.

Labels: birthday, random

Labels: Change, thinking aloud

So my neighbour and sistah Rimi gets a telly connection! Oh yeah! I personally was uber excited at the prospect until I learnt that she would only receive the Hindi channels for a while. Well, don’t get me wrong, am no Hindi-hater but the whole prospect of Bugs Bunny going “Arey, upar kya hain Duccter” was heart wrenching. But oh well, I got over it pretty quick when I saw that CID Classics was on Sony. So there we were, reminiscing our good old encounters with the television – CID’s ACP Pradyumn was my second tryst with detective serials (which are now my favourites on telly). The first was Tehkikat on DD-2. So there was Daya who always broke down doors and Frederick who was a little slow! We were having a ball checking out how catty the show had gotten, two new female detectives fighting to get credit for clue discoveries when the rest of the crew was busy solving the mystery of Gayabi the Magician – how he disappeared in a, well, disappearing act and managed to get a dead body to replace him. For once, we did not crib about the lack of creativity when it came to the name of the magician (gayabi means the one who disappears) since we had watched Avatar and its ingenuity with names (unobtainium – DUH!). If James Cameron can be forgiven for this and nominated for Oscars, heck, our Fireworks Productions can be even applauded for Mr Gayabi’s nomenclature! So there, we were shown that a neon light could actually scan a body and the computer was able to highlight the slightest flesh wounds in bright red colour. Also that when the killer has actually left his fingerprints on a glass, no one bothered to check for it even though there was the Forensic department with the flashy neon light. Anyhow, we finally discovered that there were multiple killers and that Mr Gayabi was a master hypnotist who could make you sleep by the sleight movement of his hand. The only way the CID could catch him was by covering his eyes. The closing dialogue by CID Abhijeet was “tu ab tak sabhi ko sula raha tha eh? Ab main tujhe sulaoonga” (you’ve been putting people to sleep right? Now I will put you to sleep). We thought it was part of the story until we realised that Sony had really decided to keep a flow going for the programmes. Next up! Indian Idol *snore*! Hussain and previous winner Abhijeet Sawant takes the stage. The former is a good presenter and handsome too. So let’s just say that we’d wake up here and there to catch a glimpse. But Sawant’s presentation skills never took off, just like his music career. He must have sung the song ‘Junoon’ but I guess the teleprompter cannot really pass that on to you! Anyhow, we dreaded having to sit through the serial since there was nothing else to watch. We shall go character by character here. (Kindly note that this was when the idea of The Belan Sistahs was formed. Most middle-aged ladies watch these telly serials when they are cooking. Belan is the rolling pin. Sadly, we reminded ourselves of them during this ordeal.)

Anu Malik: To paraphrase Shelley, “If Sidhu is here, can Anu Malik be far behind?” I know I know, Shelley just turned in his grave. And yes yes, Sidhu cannot be winter (since I was born in December and I shall not willingly defame myself) and Anu Malik as spring? I think the world just collectively screamed ARGH at the very thought of that! The dude just does not know that rhyming everything is passé and most importantly annoying! But since that seems to be the only way he can get his messages across, I hope he understands them too for “Mr Malik, you may think you are clever when you spout out those rhymes, but we all rather have you be impressed with mimes!”

Sunidhi Chauhan: Hmm, this is the first episode. So shall reserve comments on her. For one, she does not say “mind blowing”, “you’ve the X factor” or “fantastic” after each performance. Kudos to her for having a bigger wordrobe than Ms Farah Khan.

Saleem: Watched this guy for the first time. Hmm, he tells everyone that it was an awesome performance – talk about constructive comments. Oh well, at least he doesn’t try to rhyme when he is bring redundant. Tip for him for the next time – record your comments..oh wait, comment! Singular!
The rest of the judges for the night were the cast of the movie Housefull (Lara Dutta, Ritesh Deshmukh and Sajid Khan). They were a decent lot. But have to mention a joke by Sajid Khan – yeah, we are being extremely generous when we call it a joke. The incident shall be elaborated on later.

Now on to the contestants. A disclaimer here. One of The Belan Sistahs cannot sing to save her life. No, we are not going to ask you to SMS your guesses in! That’s a contest I don’t want to win!

First up was Mr Yashraj who owes everything to his folks! And everyone go Awww. It was so touching. The Belan Sistahs could feel tears rolling down their cheeks. Oh wait, that was the imaginary onions! Anyhow, a little bit of googling revealed that this guy had already won Rs 1 million on another reality show and a record deal to go with it! Hmm. First question, when did we start counting rupees in millions? On Indian Idol (a spin-off of the American Idol) we could probably understand but on “Choona hain aasman” (want to touch the skies)? The Belan Sistahs are not particularly happy with the Americanisation – what’s wrong with lakhs and crores? Last we checked, it was still “Kaun Banega Crorepati”! Even Big B agrees! Second question, is it justified - selecting him in this competition? It is almost like IITians getting into IIMs! (No offense, kindly note the strategically placed ‘almost’ in the sentence) Must say that he sang well. We silently hoped that worse would come along since our plans of using our belans seemed to be going down the drain.

Then there was Bhumi Trivedi. This is where The Belan Sistahs were split. The one between us who cannot sing did not like her song whereas the other found it to be good. She was praised for the Gujju rap she pulled off at the end but overall, it wasn't very eventful.

Then walked in Shashi. The omnipotent Google informs us that he was a contestant on another reality show. Now we really cried – the kid’s got a second chance! Yes, we believe! The guy left his home with Rs 1000 (equivalently a grand – for you pseudo Americans!) in his pocket to make a career in music. He returns home 2 years later and must say that he learnt a lot in the past two years. He sang extremely well. When everything was going so well, Sony decides to exercise the tear glands of all our fellow Belan Sistahs across the world. The dad is in the crowd. He starts to cry. Anu Malik points this out. Mr Shashi cries. Sunidhi cries. Or at least shows off her bright blue manicured nails by wiping off her tears(?). But we did not lose hope since three of our embedded Belan Sistah reporters were shown to be unmoved and quite frankly bored at the whole Bollywood melodrama playing out there. Mr Shashi walks into the crowd, hugs his father and exclaims “I love you Dad”. The Belan Sistahs love their dads but “I love you Dad” display by a lower middle class family in India – doctored! After all this happened, Sajid Khan decided to remind us that he was a comedian and it was his responsibility to lighten the mood. There’s a raging debate on regarding the status of the following statements. “Arey, yeh mat bolo ki tumne sapna ke liye ghar chhoda. Sapna ke maa-baap ko bura lagega. Bolo khwaab ke liye” (Do not say that you left your house for Sapna (Sapna – a Hindi word for ‘dream’; alternatively can be a girl’s name too), use the word “khwaab” (another word for dream) instead). I guess we have a unanimous verdict regarding its status here – non-joke! To end Mr Shashi’s bit on a positive note – he did sing amazingly well!

For the next one, The Belan Sistahs shall be bringing out their feminist fangs! The next contestant is 19 yr old Arpita from Kolkata. She is not the typical Indian Idol contestant. Why oh why? She is not fair skinned and she is not thin. The entire bit on her before she came on to the stage was about how she had the biggest soft toy collection ever. Fair enough. Some like pink, some like toys. Next we hear the narrator and later on Hussain introduce her as the “rolly polly choti”! The Belan Sistahs cringed! We did throw our imaginary belans at the screen! What ze heck? It is never ‘cute’ to make a veiled reference to her size on national television. Would you call Lindsay Lohan the ‘sticky skinny blonde”? Oh wait, she scores a point by being fair skinned there! Darn you all. So we were rooting for her when she broke out singing! Amazingly powerful voice and wonderful singing. The imaginary balens made a return when the judges decided to continue their ridiculous rolly polly induced rant after she was done. But screw them all we said. Go Arpita!

Arpita was followed by Kanika. This lady also had a difficult past and was determined to do everything to make her parents proud. Everyone in the house go Awww." Awwww". Must say that she sang pretty well but she was overshadowed by the contestants who had sung before her. Not going to be easy for her, we tell ya!

Next came in Vishwas. And by this time, The Belan Sistahs were hungry. Dinner time was fast approaching and we got distracted. But recap showed that he sang very well.

We had our own Bengaloorian come in next. Asit. Uber confident dude who, at home, was shown to sing with his HP laptop proudly perched up on his lap. Our guess is that his vocal chords are linked to his HP laptop in some way since he gave a dismal performance tonight without his trusted friend. Computer is indeed personal again!

Finally, Swaroop from Rajasthan makes an appearance. His story says that he grew up just listening to and singing folk music. Our embedded reporters haven’t been able to check the veracity of that statement, but rest assured they will! Till then, assuming he is telling the truth, we admit that he sang the movie song very well. Then he did another folksy number and voila, he was the next poster boy for Sony! Hussain had the nerve to tell him “You are different from the rest” in a way that almost shouted out that he was weird and the rest were normal. Imaginary belans – aim, fire!
You can clearly see that The Belan Sistahs have run out of steam here. Each paragraph is shorter than the one above. But for our grand finale, we present to you two awards. We have The Belan Awards.

The Belan Moment

There is The Belan Moment. This is for that moment when majority among The Belan Sistahs felt like throwing their imaginary belans at their telly screens. Given that it is our first episode, we decided to be generous. It is a tie between Sajid Khan’s “joke” and Hussain’s question to every contestant “Do you think you’re the next Indian Idol”? If questions can be redundant, we figured we could make the award redundant too! Ha!

Ze Best Moment

The next award (well, we haven’t been able to come up with a fancy name for it yet) is for the best (really!) moment. This award is for the moment when all The Belan Sistahs decided to roll out their best dishes to the contestant. In this episode, we give it to Ms Arpita breaking into her song – after all the veiled insults, it was a treat to watch her perform so well and to be honest, The Belan Sistahs were pleasantly surprised.

It has been a longish post and since The Belan Sistahs haven’t got their administrative duties structured yet, there shall be no editing. You are requested to kindly bear with us and ignore all the errors that have crept in. So until next time, as The Belan Sistahs would say, Keep on Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’! (Yes, Limp Bizkit stole it from us!)

Labels: Belan Sistahs

Labels: FPM, Interaction, Strategy

Have you ever had a checklist? Of course, you have. Let me be more specific. Have you ever had a checklist for your friend, partner, lover? You know, how you would want them to be and in research parlance, who would not end up being a desk reject? For the longest time, I never thought about it. I had friends tell me their lists. Most of them included good looking, smart, funny, should-make-me-laugh, successful, ... Some of the lists reminded me of the famous joke about women having the chance of their lives to go shopping at a 4 storey mall and they were going to shop for husbands. The only conditions were that once you decide to enter the floor, you could not go to any other but pick one from the present floor. Also, one couldn’t go back to previous floors. The ground floor said “good looking guys”. This lady skipped and went to the first floor. It said “good looking guys who can cook”. She was impressed but hey, maybe the next floor holds more promise. “Good looking guys who can cook, will look after kids and clean up after themselves”. Now we are talking! She heads to the third floor. “Good looking guys who can cook, will look after kids, clean up after themselves, crack you up with their jokes, surprise you in bed and exceed all expectations”. Wow, she thought. How could they possibly outdo this on the next floor? Uberly excited, she climbs to the final floor. “This floor is just to prove the point that it is never enough for women!” I must say that some of these lists proved it.

Anyhow, it was an interesting prospect for me. Who would probably make it to the list? Fine, no one can plan such things and ‘it’ happens. Yada yada yada. I shall, nonetheless, try. So here’s what I came up with.

1) Drop dead gorgeousness is overrated. I am not saying that a modelesque significant other will be frowned upon. Of course, should bruise my ego a bit that I am not the fancy one. But hey, I wouldn’t mind at all. But then, a six pack won’t be the first one on my list. So anyone who looks decent, and by decent I mean that if someone were to see him out on the street, I would really like it if they did not comment along the following lines “There’s something creepy about the dude” “He looks like he is up to no good” “Must clutch purse and walk faster”

2) A person who can converse, with equal ease, with people who are two rungs above him and a good few rungs below him in the social/professional ladder. I have utmost respect for people who can appreciate everyone for the simple fact that they are humans too! If you cannot get down from your high horse, you may ride off into the sunset without me!

3) Someone who can communicate (humour included here). I blabber. It is amazing to have someone with the patience to listen to it all. But, then again, even I run out of topics to talk about. So speak up!

4) Anyone who is ready to try things out at least once and loves to travel! I can be a lazy bum at times (fine, most) and can shy away from giving things a shot. Therefore, I am really hoping that your enthusiasm will rub off on me.

5) On the aesthetic side, someone who can pull off formal wear!

Five is a decent number I think. So shall stick to it. I am sure I will have a lot more additions to it. I am guilty of being human! But I guess this is a good start.

PS: And yes yes, Happy Valentine’s Day to all the mushy ones and to my fellow Single Club members, good luck with your checklists! :)

Labels: Checklist, Valentine's Day