Friday, January 28, 2005

TOW .... Eureka!

eureka ! eureka ! ...( whoa ! hold it , am i naked again ?... no , i'm cloaked )... so where were we ? ...ya ...
eureka! eureka! ..I found it !

i've finally found the map to Pharoah Tutunkhamon's treasure ( ya , like I'm going to post it on the net ) , and I've found the secret to happiness ( for unfortunate lesser mortals (unlike me ) who are not planning to dig in egypt)

I guaruntee u tat by the end of the tis article u'll ....either be a very happy person , or will join my suicide cult , or will just end ur own life !
so here we go ...

>>PATH ONE { and no , it has nothing to do with BSNL,Govinda or JetLi }

take admission in an indian engg college .
now , go to college (or if u r a mallu-> ko-ledge), sittin in a bus for 2 hrs , where ur only activity shd be trying not to listen to 'radio mirchi 98.3fm ' {if i ever met tat b!#$%^& marconi ...i will @#$^& !!}
reach college .
sit for 8 hrs on a bench sandwitched between , two blokes . one , the substatiation of taciturnicity itself , the other an inveterate singer .
then, become a member of a gang with enough girls to make sure that the theme of every conversation is "SW#!?NESS " or " CU$@NESS " .
then for 8 hrs straight ...do nothing . and wen I say nothing , i mean NOTHING !! ..(okay , thinking about carmen electra is allowed , but at ur own risk!) .
now come back home in the same bus with a small entertainment break tat involves going through the simulation of craters on the moon { on the old mahabs rd} .
reach home .
switch on the TV and realise that only ppl who have STBs have right to live .
connect to the net (dial-up) . realise again tat only ppl who have broadband have the right to live .
now occupy urself with plans of commmiting suicide .
after one hr , decide against it .
now write blogs and make sure tat others commmit suicide .

repeat this exercise for (365*3 + 366) days { on holidays , substitute the time spent in college with "staring at the wall" activity(or non-activity) }

if u manage to not kill urself , then u'll be enlightened with the "key to happiness".

---

But if this path luks tough to u , then relax , because at " Fuddha's " .... everyone is a winner ! so i'm goin to let u in the secret anyways ...
ladies and gentlemen, presenting to u ... behind door no. 3 ... the secret of happiness ....is ...tada ....

" NOT GETTING BORED !! "

yup ! tat ma friend is the true key to happiness .
over the years humans in their quest to maximize their enjoyment function with the least amount of work done (refer , TOW...Laziness) , has self programmed the human-gene to be prolific . . hence , happiness lies in being occupied ... occupied with someting that is productive.
because wen u are not occupied , u are doing nothing , which is a very good thing utill u start thinking . once u start thinking , u realise how much ur life sucks ...from there , the decison to end life is not very far away !

so at the end of the 3-post-long probe into the depths of truth , we've learnt tat :
a) the by-products of boredom , like me writing the article and u redaing it, can cause major disruptions in the neural patterns .
b) the goal of life is to be occupied 24X7 with some fecund activity .

Friday, January 21, 2005

TOW ... all the happi-NESS !

in my rather somnolent last-2-last article , i tried to put life under the microscope . later , on a cursory perusal of my own article , i wondered if i shud put myself under the microsocope !!

but i gez one does get philosophical wen , he has nothin better to do .
so i was sayin .... if organic evolution is true, then there is no purpose in life. Life is an accident, and people search in vain for any meaning to it. Ergo , there is no higher goal than to make life enjoyable ... or as Aristotle put it ," Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. "

Now , coming straight to the question ( because , "a taciturn expert at circumlocation i am , a scatterbrain and chatterbox i'm not" , Linda Goodman's words , not mine )

Q. wat is happiness ?

well i tgt and i tgt and i tgt ....then i had food , conducted a small scale survey and ofcourse watched porn ... and then again i tgt and i tgt and i tgt .... and this is how i'll conclude my research :

***

happiness can be classified as :

# BIG Happy (H) :

> survial (maintaining the "extant" state)
> absence of major tragedy (not studying engg in TN)
> health (a fully-functional normal body )
> material comforts (broadband,set-top-box,faster car,512DDR,i6600,cdman)
> sense of achievement
> friends(somebody to put ur hand around , and say "dude...Life sucks!!")
> security for the morrow(knowing tat u wont be unemployed tomoro)

# small hAPPY (h):

> random unscheduled fun with friends
> watching Seinfeld re-runs ,Friends rereruns and Simpsons rerereruns
> watching some riotous ridiculous bollywood movie during exams
> reading PG Wodehouse
> listening to music (whether its lois armstrong's 'wonderful world'
or bizkit's 'Hot-Dog' , or doing a la SRK with 'Yunhi chala' playin in the
car)
> eating middle-eastern food on(or off?!) the street
> staring at the azure sky for no reason
> swaying in congruence to eucalyptus trees , and feeling the balmy wind on
ur skin and hair .
> feeling the aroma of hot cappachino ... making its way to the brain thru
the nostrils .
> waking up in the morning to realise tat ,it's a Sunday and u can snooze on
> staying home-alone for a day,with ur mom attending some distant cousin's wedding, and experiencing the freedom to throw ur underwear on
the couch,wet towel on the bed,singing aloud ,and playing "I am the
dragon" with the pillow !!



> "H" forms the base for happiness. this is what we plan and work for . it has a relatively long life . but it is generally taken for granted untill it is suddenly taken away from us (like MTV and StarWorld ,or a friend who stops talking ,or a phone that just disappears from the desk) .
> "h" forms the topping on the base . it is generally not planned for . it is highly ephemeral and can be experienced only in sporadic bursts wen u realise that u are happy .

***

> there is no such thing as "perpetual happiness".
> p.h. is jus a chimera ... like heaven ...I've always wondered wat all those clean souls do up in heaven ... if all they do is, just sit mirthfully till the end of time ... wont they get bored ?!
> the search for happiness is wat keeps humans on the move .

***

this formula may not cover all possibilities , but it comes close to defining happiness :

H = (Desires Met) / Desires

> Zero desires ,equals infinite happiness , but then it also means not being human .
> H is a relative term . the greater the value the happier u are , in contrast to other blighters struggling in vain to take the value of H to unity .

***

Each second ,Man tries to strike something off the 'desires met ' list . But parallely ,more things are added to the 'Desires' list .
there are always fatser cars ,greater RAMs, newer phone-models, better colleges . . . or as the adage goes,"the grass is always greener on the other side "
Man will never be content. And he shudnt .Thats the nature of evolution , the day man becomes content , the world will come to a stand still .

So , Happiness lies in experiencing the leap from one pasture to another .

So much of crap ,and the point yet not made .
the point tat was to be made :-
" There is no such thing as happi-NESS , life is all about experiencing the never ending race of achieving more , with the right attitude"

***

If u got this far , i'm sure u want to join my suicide cult .
for more info , contact...Fuddha

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

TOW ... saanwariya

So it was another bright day , made bleak only by the thought of being in college ( that gud for nothing excuse for an educational establishment !!) , wen i found my self humming a familiar tune ... it was a nice pleasant feeling ... I'd no clue for how long I was droning the same ... but suddenly , I became aware of my blithersomeness ..... my brain started searching patterns , to recognize the song , whilst I continued huming ... and wen the search ended successfully , I realised wat I was doing and went .... BGWLAH !!!

It was 'saanwariya' ... yup that girly song that chic sings while dancing about in golden wheat fields , in Swades ( that damn movie !! ... still havent gotten over it ... wen was the last time I was smitten...in a positive way ...by a hindi movie ? ...DCH maybe ) . Now I like the song , infact I really like that song , but it's so icky to sing or even humm the same ... for the simple reason that it's a very "female- song"

I've heard guys singing Madonna's "Die Another Day" ... and I've not felt that they broke the code-of-guys by doing so.... some how it doesn't sound that girly , probably because of the rock and the dirty, evil look part of it ... but 'saanwariya ' is definitely female ... I dont even know wat it means , something to the same effect as it's cousin 'saajan' I believe ...

I can already hear the female readers calling me a MCP(male chauvinistic PERSON) ...but they do that all the time anyways ... for them every guy is a MCP and every one of their kind are GODESSES...considering that their cerebral matter tantamounts to that of a peahen , u really cant blame them !!

So, how does our inbuilt male gene recognize wats girly and wats not ? who makes the code-of-guys ? and , how do all the men universally know this implied unvoiced code ? .... Obviously I'm not going to let the secret out !!

Now, I did some homework and found out wat we can/cant listen to and wat we can/cant sing or humm ...

# Dido , Evanesence ,Tina Turner get total clearance .Its ok to hum/sing their songs .
# Ella Fitgerald,Diana Ross,Gwyneth Paltrow etc are also ok if they are doing a duo .
# Brintney Spears and Christina Aguilera are a no-no to sing or listen to ... watching them ... tats absolutely fine !!
# All the others ...Twain, Avril, AllSaints etc etc ..are fine listenin to , but singing their sonngs will be crossing the ickiness border .

Parting note : if u are a girl and u r still reading and resolve to read my posts , lemme assure u , ur grey matter is far greater then tat of a peahen .

Monday, January 10, 2005

TOW .... Wat is LIFE ?

DISCLAIMER : the following work is the product of a tortured being , who under ultra boring milieu and state of blankness , had to put LIFE under the microscope . forgive him if it lessens ur desire to live .
***

Wat is LIFE ?
The result of a freaky co-incidental combination of diparate molecular compostions , catalysed by accidental phemomena occuring on a planet that just happened to be at the right distance from a mid-aged star !!
The answer is definitely not that easy , but with the current scope of science , lets assume that is wat life is . A rather phlegmy definition of something that is simply beautiful for its complexity!!

***

What is SCIENCE ?
curtly put, " the study of nature " .
an evergrowing rulebook , that started off as a set of premises , but has now grown to an enoromous network so well knit that we can 'almost' confidently say that the assumptions are true . Ergo, anything can be explained by science ..... well ,Almost anything .

***

One thing that science(or for that matter any enterprise seeking the truth) has yet to find is ...'the GOAL of life'

Every phenomenon has some goal , some reason . All organisms are very objective oriented beings . We always do ,the things we do, for a reason ( saving blogging ... nobody including me has an iota of idea , where this blogpost is getting to ? )
Coming back , what is the aim of life >
Life (as a verb) is just the period of time between Birth and Death . In this period we have subgoals .... viz. getting a girl-friend, losing flab, adding more RAM to the system, convincing oneslf to jog in morning , getting FDFS tickets for the latest hit flick ...etc etc etc . We are all , as any A.I. student would put it , ideal-utility-based-rational agents , working to increase our happiness function .

But what is the ultimate goal ? wat do we do once we achieve these sub goals ? Sure, that will never happen , cuz , human's 'desire list' is un-ending .But even academically ?
And , wat is this obsessive need humans have to be HAPPY ?

Doesn't look like we are getting any answers .... in the near future . Unless FuDDHA decides to sit under the Bodhi tree , which he is not planning to do untill he has sex.(so the female readers know how to contribute , to the search of truth)

Hmmm ... After this circular trip around the universe we have gotten nowhere .
Now if we stop analysing Life at such fine levels of granuality , and find a lazzier , convenient and convincing answer , we come to the verdict that :

LIFE = f(SURVIVAL ,being HAPPY )

Ergo , the pseudo aim of every living being is to maximize its happiness at each instant of survival .

Now the REAL question is wat is HAPPINESS ?

***

In the next blog we'll try in futility to find the ans the above Q and some more related Qs viz . :
> Has Fuddha (a.k.a. scoffes) lost it ... under strenuous levels of boredom ?
> Is Fuddha trying to prove that an ideal mind is the cradle of EVIL ?
> will Fuddha be able to find out the meaning of happiness ?
> is Fuddha trying to form a suicide-cult ?


... coming soon -> " TOW...all the Happiness " !!

Saturday, January 08, 2005

TOW ... Who am I ?

I was watching NDTV abt the 'Parvasiya Bhartiya Meet' tats takin place in the capital all this week ...I switch channel and I see Jay Sean(of the Rishi Rich fame) promoting his new album , talking with his thick british accent ... I press the next-key and I see SRK in swades , coming back to India...back to NDTV ( nmo@*#! f*$#in CAS ) and I see a bunch of desis (from the states , who've cum east for PVBM) singing 'Main hoon Naa 'with an american accent ....

Makes me wonder ... these ABCDs and BBCDs are getting so much attention .... how come nobody cares about TNBDCBMC(s) ..."Tamil-Nadu born , Delhi brought up , Confused Mallu in Chennai" !!

It might be tough for one to picturize the confusion , but it's really frustrating wen u've no single place you can call home!...and each day u try to search ur true idendity !

So how confused am i ?

> My dad hails from the pictursque state of 'Kerala ' .

> My mum , born of Malayali parents , was brought up in the British influenced hill station of Ooty in 'Tamil Nadu'.

> I was born in Ooty (TN) .

> I grew up in Delhi , where I studied in a school quarter filled with UK return Punjabis and another quarter of Haryanvi Jatts and the rest with typical Delhi-ites who immigrated from the neighbouring Punjab , UP and Rajasthan.

> Before I hit puberty I moved to Kanpur . A city unlike Delhi . Less influenced by the west . rustic . A typical Indian city strongly connected to its past , it's culture and it's language . Infact so Indian that I felt out of place !! But with time I developed a liking to the place . This is where I spent my teenage years , and though I hated the place I've a special attachment to it .

> In mid 90's the cable revolution happened . the west was almost instantaneously brought to the living room . I've spent more time watching american sitcoms, hollywood movies and discovery channel , than another single thing in life . I lived vicariously as Kevin Arnold or Chandler Bing . Like any other regular indian kid America grew over me . By the 9th grade I knew the price of oranges in Sacramento ,the no. of turns in Lombardo and the length of 11th avenue in the Big Apple ... though totally oblivious to the no. of states in India !

> the British left but their englishness stayed .... the UK return Punjabi neighbours, PG Wodehouse, Agatha Christie ,BBC(again mofo CAS) and ofcourse Liz Hurley !! ....I think we all are lil british .

> Bollywood has a mojor impact on every Indian kid . They make ridiculous movies , yet we all love watching them . India does what Bombay decides . So there is lil bit of Bombay in anybody who follows bollywood . Hence I relate to 'amchi mumbai' too .

> Then there were the summer vacations , when I would sit in the train for three days , travel 2400km , to meet my garandparents in Kerala . This is the time wen I get to know the place I'm supposed to belong to . The place where my ancestors come from . I spend time with my extended family , watching mallu movies , taking some quick lessons in reading and writing my so-called mother tongue , labouring to find where I fit in that soceity . . . and realise that I dont belong there .

> Finally there is Chennai . A place that has bestowed upon me different levels of confusion and cruelty . We've northies, mallus, tamilians, cool tamilians, cool mallus and cool northies !! And , I dont belong to any one single category .
It has taken away from me my right to a decent education, my hair(thanks 2 the water),and my only source of entertainment ...cable TV !!
There isn't a day when I dont curse the place ; yet I've grown to like this place ..afterall , this is where I met my best friends , this is where I've spent my college life (however ridiculous it may be), this is the place where I can switch between diff. soceities/culture in a single day , and though I hate the place , this is where my present is ...
***

So , I've been bullied for talking in english at one place , tgt of being some crass-hindi speaking freak at another , ostracised for being a northie , looked differently for being a southie , met different kinds of people , seen all the faces of the coin .

And I've realised that I've no single place I call home and no one sect of people I relate to totally . But at the same time , I can make meself feel at home where ever I go , I can speak in 4 languages and many dialects , and I can make any set of ppl think that I'm one of them...well almost !!

Friday, January 07, 2005

TOW .... Swades

Clips showing SRK wearing very casual-everyday clothes and a ruminative look , first sitting on a royal blue executive class seat on AI ; cut to a different world , the same SRK now sitting in a crowded train getting squeezed from all directions and yet giving the true Indian "it's Ok yaar !" look .... followed by a similar scene, boarded on a overloaded boat sailing on a placid lake ... and then in a bus giving a bemused look to the old man sitting next to him with a compulsive habit of giving an expressionless stare , whilst adjusting his shoulders to sit on a seat that's otherwise supposed to be for 2 ! ....and finally sandwitched between 2 typical 'bhaiya' characters on an old beatten bajaj lambretta (or was it a TVS 50 ! ) , all this with the bckgnd of Rehman's rad theme song .
Now , if this promo dint drag you to watch the best hindi movie in some time now , then there is something seriously wrong with ur decision making cells !!

***

The PLOT :
Mohan Bhargava (SRK), a NASA scientist, returns to India, intending to take his nanny back with him. But the village of Charanpur, and of course the nubile Gita (Gayathri Joshi ... who btw is a really cute chick), starts to grow on him. As Mohan becomes increasingly involved with Charanpur’s problems and people, he realises that he must choose between his life in America(that promises a great quality of life) OR , India (that beckons seductively and urgently!)

***

Why Swades is the best hindi movie made for the "intelligent" bollywood movie goer , after DCH/Sarfarosh :

>It's the only movie of 2004 that dint confuse , storyline to ... cleavages and upper thighs !!

>it's not some riotous fantasy , but a very possible story .

>it's not about indians living in castles of scotland (wen still in mumbai) or about colleges where girls come in bikinis , or about the notorious underworld . The story potrays the great indian bourgeoisie !!

> the protagonist is not some romantic music teacher clad in expensive clothes , perpetually holding a violin in his hand ; ...but a delhi-ite who went to the states to do his Masters (or BS) in engg , and stayed on to work for NASA as a scientist.

> Unlkike the misleading look given by the name and some bad reviews by critics , the movie talks against 'Indian Culture ' !
It accepts that currently our country is not GREAT , but it has the potential to be one , if we let go off our unreasonable faith in ridiculous traditions(viz the varna system etc) that have been passed on for a zillion years , and stopped using it as an excuse , wen juxtaposed with other developed and developing nations .
It also speaks for America (tat is generally potrayed in bollywood movies as a value-less industrial country fraught with racist whites and hungry-4-sex punks! )

> For the first time on Indian screen ... the village folk look like village folk !!

> Performances .... for the first time SRK has not over acted ( and his charisma stays ). He's done an amazing work , that cud not have been done by anybody else . Seems like he's always wanted to do some intelligent movie like this one , but never got an opportunity to. Awesome work by all the artists .... very natural .

> the music ... AR Rehman ... need I say more .

> the background score ... it makes u want to get into the movie and make that damn turbine work !! ...and also flirt with Geeta .

> the romance .... its clean ,subtle and sweet(prob the last time I'll use tat word)

> the humour ... its not caricatured, but very soft and real-life-like !!

> the dialogues ... whether its Mohan's curt replys to his boss's Qs or total kick ass of the indian pride (for its unreasonable 'sanskars' and stuff ...next time i hear tat word I'll puke of disgust) ... and, they are in english or hinglish ...

> the absolutely impeccable screenplay and the meticulous attention to detail ...

>> The GPM satt that is talked abt here , actually exists and was launched only recently . visit-> gpm.gsfc.nasa.gov , for more on this .
>> Mohan accepts that whatever said and done ,after living in the states he cant live in Charanpur !! And though it's a hard decision , he choses his job to his "LOU" .
>> Near the climax when Geeta prays for Mohan to come back as the caravan sinks into the horizon , any regular intelligent movie goer tired of the Johar-Chopra formula would almost get up to leave . But , Gowariker saves the day by showing the magnificent edifice of the Goddard Space Centre in D.C . , and Proj. Manager Mohan Bhargav back to work , on Phase II of GPM ... doing justice to his job , and the school of reasoning .
>> Mohan doesnt return for his "LOU" Geeta , but for an array of logical reasons .
>> He doesnt return to 'the village' to become a farmer and light bulbs in his leisure time . Instead he plans to join ,The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centreand contribute to the nation's prosperity with his expertise .
>> Mohan speaks in a very urban, americanised(not accented) and laboured hindi, that is fraught with words borrowed from the queen's language .
>> Mohan's love interest , Geeta , is not jus his love interest but an important part of the movie and the theme .
>> And , she's not some 'gaon ki gori' , but a delhi educated social worker .

> Unlike Lagaan , the problems of the village dont disappear with a freak sixer on the last ball ... infact the problems dont end , they just the begin to end . Mohan merely stirs a self propelling revolution .

***

# Cons :
> very lengthy
> little documentary-ish
> editing could have been better

# Final word :
- Mr.Gowariker ... Awesome dude !... and thanks for respecting the intelligence of the movie goer.
- SRK ... ur best performance ever. I've never craved to get into NASA more .
- Ms.Joshi .... will u marry me ?


# word after Final word :

' Main chalta hoon '