drifting away from reality

‘Out of syllabus’!

Roopa — Mon, 26 May 2008 11:17:58 +0000

Aren’t we supposed to get full marks for out-of-syllabus questions? Can someone please tell Life this?!

No preparation time, no study guides, no mock exams, no ‘grace marks’, no fair rules and heck, the lessons come after the exam! Real life’s all screwed up, I tell you. Wish I could go back to school and just stay there!

Movie Talk

Roopa — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:47:55 +0000

I’m not an movie expert, not even close but I think there are two ways you can make a (Tamil) movie successful.

Option 1: Give a good movie. Now, this is not quite as simple as it sounds. You’ll need a good story - one that would appeal to the ‘youth’ and can also qualify as a family story. A family here comprises of two kids, mother, father, one or more grandmothers, zero or more grandfathers and sometimes a great grandmother too; and the movie has to be certified ‘ok’ by them all. And then comes good music - A.R. Rehman, may be, if you can afford him. Item numbers, again catering equally to ‘youth’ and ‘family’ needs. Catchy script with the right amount of punch. Loads of luck and a horde of other factors I’m not aware of. Now, even if you do have all this in you, this option is still considerably risky. (your name closely resembling ‘Mani Rathnam’ might help..but just might)

Option 2: A risk-free option. Get Dhanush to star in your movie.

Is it that simple? I’m not kidding. It is. You need to take care of certain things in the movie though

1. First things first. The story. Pick ad-hoc scenes from a variety of movies and string them together. Now, it doesn’t matter how cliched the scenes are or how badly they fit in. Just collect what you can get and be quick. We won’t waste much time here.

2. Remember our hero is an action hero. Ok, now stop laughing. He is and there has to be a fight sequence somewhere in the movie to prove that. Again, you can pick some random fight scene from some random movie and fit it somewhere randomly. But one scene would do. Don’t over-do it. We don’t want our hero in bed for long.

3. Item numbers are a must but care should be taken with respect to the strategic positioning of the hero during the item song. Remember our hero is ‘a good man who will never look, let alone drool, at any girl other than the heroine’. Keep fixating on this point until it hits the heroine (and the audience) like raw spirit, stays through the night and gives them a hangover the next morning.

4. There’s no need for a separate full-paid comedian. Our hero is entirely capable of comedy all by himself.. No, we’re not talking about the laughter he evokes inadvertently with his looks (that’s always there) but the real ‘comedy’ comedy. He has a inborn talent for it (actually it was inherited thru marriage…but that’s not relevant to us anyway).

5. Remember, our heroine will have to be both modern and traditional. How you handle this seemingly oxymoron situation is entirely up to you. I can give you some hints though. A modern and hence, obviously obnoxious heroine will at some point listen to a brash tirade from the hero (which on translation to English would involve a lot of four-lettered profanity), after which point she will automatically become traditional. Now this proven technique, apart from working all the time, also has the advantage of reminding the audience of our hero’s father-in-law, thereby increasing the movie’s chances of success a hundred fold. But on the negative side, too much camera focus on our hero during the tirade-delivery might lead to unwanted consequences … for the audience. So, another way (rather unconventional and untested. So, use at your own risk) to handle this would be to have the heroine explain at some point in the movie why she was modern until now and why, from this point onwards, she will be traditional. The explanation does not have to make sense if the heroine is pretty (in both modern n traditional wear) or if the scene comes at a point where the audience are already too bugged to care anyway.

6. The last but most important point. The heroine should fall hopelessly in love with our hero and preferably, for effect, choose him over some rich cute guy. You might wonder why use a cute guy here when obviously our hero looks like a dork next to him. Well, this contrast should be there to make sure the message reaches crystal clear to the audience - “A good heart will always triumph over good looks and wealth”. You see, educating the public is very important in a movie. The moral science is what the audience pay for, after all. Ofcourse, make sure the rich cute guy never gets enough focus anywhere in the movie. We don’t want the audience sympathizing for him when he gets his bulb. Beats the whole morel science purpose of the movie.

A lot of points to remember, I know, but definitely easier than Option 1, don’t you think?

Case Study:

Yaaradi Nee Mohini - A successful movie of the highest degree…and pathetic to the same degree.

Related Posts:

Unnale Unnale

The little red balloon

Roopa — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:16:44 +0000

I went to church yesterday in a rather grumpy mood. That we were late and had to sit outside (’cos the cozy seats inside were full already) only worsened my mood. While I sat there with only half my mind listening to the pastor droning on about how of all apostles Peter loved Jesus the most and Jesus, in turn, loved John the most (God’s got his favorites too huh?); and the other half of my mind wondering why my life was getting crappier and crappier each day, I noticed this little girl sitting next to me, holding a red balloon in her hands - you know, those heart shaped helium balloons that kids are very fond of? The balloon that is supposed to be held only by it’s strand, this kid was clutching in her hands like one would hold a prized possession. Her tear-stained face sporting a smile and the irritated look on her mother’s face suggested she must’ve gotten the balloon after throwing a reasonable tantrum.

Things seemed hunky-dory until her little brother - the naughty brats that brothers usually are - pushed her and she, in an attempt to catch her balance let go of the balloon. With her hands still outstretched, she stared at the balloon as it went higher and higher up, out of her reach. I thought any moment she was going to turn around and spank her brother hard or cry for another balloon or may be just sulk. Her mother watched too, with a terrified not-another-tantrum-now look on her face. But to everyone’s surprise, the little kid turned around and said, with a voice full of delight, ‘amma, balloon yesu appa kitta poguthu‘, that roughly (and religion independently) translates to, ‘Ma, the balloon is going to God’. I couldn’t help but smile at that.

She continued to watch the balloon till it was just a dot and finally said, with a look of pride and satisfaction, ‘poyiruchu‘ (meaning ‘it’s gone’ as in ‘it’s gone to it’s destination’). Am sure God himself must have been distracted for a moment, to watch the little red balloon coming His way. What smile it must’ve brought to His otherwise solemn face! :)

All of a sudden life didn’t appear so bad after all…

‘Sometimes, a little red balloon, against the dark clouds, is all it takes to make the sky beautiful to gaze upon’

The Little Things

Roopa — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 18:40:45 +0000

Sometimes a little push is all it takes to help someone reach for the stars
and sometimes, just a little word to lift the spirits high.

Sometimes a little memory is all it takes to revive the times that made you smile
and sometimes, just a little lie to believe it’s all gonna be okay.

But sometimes a little push is all it takes to send someone over the edge
and sometimes, just a little word to break a heart so strong.

Sometimes a little memory is all it takes to see it was never meant to be
and sometimes, just a little lie to ruin a friendship long-protected.

It’s the little things you do that make a difference
and what difference you make is what you will be remembered for.

The Butterfly Story Retold

Roopa — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:34:05 +0000

The Original:

Once upon a time in a land far far away, an old man found the cocoon of a butterfly. Feeling lonely he decided to take the cocoon home to watch its transformation to a beautiful butterfly. One day a small opening appeared in the cocoon. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through the little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and could go no further. Clearly it was having trouble coming out of the cocoon

So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took as pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged out easily…but it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God´s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

The Moral: If Life had no obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been and we could never fly.

The Tester’s Version:

Once upon a time in a land far far away (no, not that far away. come back) an old man* found some WinRunner scripts lying around. Feeling bored he decided to modify them, fix bugs in them and beautify the code.

One day, satisfied with his work, he started the final run of the automation. He sat down and watched it click, type and navigate around the application in it’s own beautiful way. All of a sudden it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and could go no further. Clearly it was having trouble recognizing an OK button in the application.

So the man decided to help the script move forward and clicked on the OK button. He continued to watch because he expected that any moment the script would continue. Nothing happened. It had just stopped. The script was still looking for the OK button, which wasn’t there anymore ‘cos the old man had already clicked on it. In fact, the entire automation that had been running perfectly fine for several hours had to be totally restarted.

What the man in his kindness and haste (impatience and stupidity, actually) did not realize is that the Gods of Mercury don’t quite like to be interrupted.

The moral: When Winrunner scripts are running, just leave the damn thing alone!

* Age and gender changed to protect the privacy of the guilty ;-)

P.S. I know that was a lame post but then, at times, I get a little too philosophical…in a weird sort of way :D

Differences aren’t so bad, you know!

Roopa — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 13:38:06 +0000

“I do not, for the moment atleast, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you.” ~David Keirsey

It’s sometimes so frustrating when people expect me to react the way they would or like what they like all the time. I know what you are thinking but no, I’m not this headstrong person always wanting to have my way. I can be docile to some extent, in fact, to a great extent but if you want to see yourself in me, well, for God’s sake get yourself a mirror and leave me alone!

I think relationships would be a lot easier if only we could understand that people are different from each other in their thoughts, perspective, likes, dislikes…whatever. Just ‘cos someone doesn’t see things the way you do doesn’t mean the person doesn’t belong to your league.

While we expect variety in everything - from the things we see to the things we do - why is it so difficult to take, in stride, some variety in people’s attitude and opinions? The way we homo sapiens are biologically wired (No, I don’t know about the other species. I’m not from the Discovery Channel) it’s almost impossible that someone would act and react just the way you do. If you find someone reacting ‘your‘ way all the time, trust me, either that person is lying to you big time or watch out, you’ve been cloned!

The road I took…

Roopa — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:10:30 +0000

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has lead me back to square one!

It’s not working, Mr. Frost!

Paying bills online? No thanks!

Roopa — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:41:54 +0000

The airtel.in site - that looks impeccably professional at first sight - can seriously get on your nerves sometimes. Ok, I understand for a person with a flash memory (meaning, I forget everything in a flash), changing passwords every month is not a security option but a dumb idea. But just because I changed my airtel.in password sometime back and forgot the new password doesn’t mean Airtel can subject me to a mental torment, right? I need to pay my mobile bill, which is already a week overdue and the site is doing everything possible to stop me from paying it. Now, don’t ask me why I didn’t walk into an Airtel office to pay it. That’s a physical torment!

So, for the record, here’s what happened. I went to the airtel.in site and entered my username (which, thankfully being my mobile number, is easy to remember) and password. It opened a pop-up asking me to enter my username/password again…yes, again! Now, this is not because I entered the wrong password the first time. It just happens to be Airtel’s standard login procedure - enter your username/password twice to prove that you aren’t lazy. So, I took up the challenge of proving that I’m not lazy and entered my username/password again…only to get a blank white screen staring blankly at me. Now, that’s not a very polite way of saying I failed the challenge right? I closed the window and logged in again. Now, it said, “Please open a new browser for new session“. Security reasons huh? Feeling glad that someone is taking my security seriously, I opened a new browser window and logged in again. It said again, “Please open a new browser for new session” and I said, “what the hell!”. It was a new browser window, after all. It took me a moment to understand that when they say ‘open a new browser’, they mean, ‘close all your existing browser windows and open a brand new browser window’. Now, don’t you think that’s a bit too haughty of Airtel? to make me close all my important browser windows - orkut, gmail, yahoomail and a couple of blogs (from where I was trying to steal ideas) - just to relogin to their site? Thankfully, they didn’t ask me to reinstall my browser or much worse, reinstall Windows or much much worse, buy a new PC each time I have to login to their site. Probably their security team is thinking of that right now.

Anyway, I did what I was told - closed all my browser windows, opened a fresh browser and logged in again. To appreciate all my efforts, this time the blank screen was replaced by a rather polite ‘Authentication failed‘ screen. I closed the pop-up and logged in again. “Please open a new browser for new session“. Shucks! I forgot that!

After repeating the above cycle for ‘n’ number of times (where n is a multiple of infinity), I finally got my password right. I heaved a sigh of relief (that almost startled the person sleeping..er sitting next to me) and proceeded to pay my bill. Did I succeed? No! This time it was “Payment not processed. Please try again later“. With a string of expletives - which, had I said louder would’ve gotten me out of my job without even a severance package - I was about to give up. However, the fact that I got so close to paying my bill encouraged me for a few more cycles. The result of my “try, try and try until you are tired” determination: the same blank screen that stared blankly at me during my first attempt. Back to screen one…er square one. I gave up there! I still haven’t paid my bill and hence, my mobile connection could get disconnected any moment (I can see my friends heaving a sigh of relief here…wonder why?).

The infamous ‘Communication Error’ on the irctc.co.in had, long back, made me realise that having a PC and an Internet connection doesn’t make life any easier. Airtel only reaffirms that now. I can now see why my dad grinned when I told him I’ve started paying bills online. So much for me trying to appear internet-sauvy to him! :(

A serenity prayer

Roopa — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:56:27 +0000

“Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.“

I say this little prayer every time I feel down, upset or frustrated. Though not a charm to lift my spirits up instantaneously, it does keep me from hitting rock bottom.

There’s a fine line between what we can change and what we can’t; and a finer line between what we can change and what isn’t worth changing. Knowing where to draw these two lines is, what I think, the key to staying sane. Most of the time we put in so much effort (physically and emotionally) in trying to change the things that aren’t just worth it and in the process, tend to neglect ones that actually need amending; and at the end of the day, we regret both - what we have done and what we have NOT done.

I think life would be much simpler if only there was a guidebook (technically, an instruction manual), complete with an index, listing down every can-be-changed, cannot-be-changed, need-to-be-changed, need-not-be-changed, should-be-changed and should-not-be-changed aspect of life. Place your situation in one of the six categories and you’ll know what has to be done. hmmm…sadly, life is never meant to be that simple and hence, one such book never gets published. So, at those times when you don’t know whether to ‘do something about it’ or ‘just shut up, put up and move on’; and the very thought of deciding between the two intimidates you, it helps to say, “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Unnale Unnale

Roopa — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 01:35:26 +0000

If you are wondering why I’m writing a review on this movie almost two months after it was released, well, this isn’t really a review on the movie. Being a person who watches movies at the rate of one per month, I know my blog doesn’t qualify for movie reviews

This post is just my thoughts on the concept that the movie is based on. Anytime I have a serious discussion on the movie with any guy, it almost often starts a He-She argument between us. The reason for the argument: the claim from the guy that all women are fighter-cocks (or should I say fighter-hens?) like the character Jhansi in the movie and this overly generalized claim gets on my nerves.

The movie starts off - the exact sequence of events, I don’t remember - with the female lead character, Jhansi, getting mad at her boyfriend for living his life the way he wants - flirting with other women. The guy, Kathick is westernized (I say western here cos someone recently told me that in the west you are allowed to kiss a bride in front of your girl, while the bridegroom is standing right there looking like an idiot..and you are also allowed to eat pizzas like a pig disgustingly) while Jhansi is traditional and old-fashioned in her views (the same someone told me this too).

Jhansi strongly disapproves her guy’s playboy attitude and says so to him, which is interpreted by the guy (and the guys* watching the movie) as fighting over silly things. So, what does she do? She thinks over the matter seriously, realizes the relationship is not working because of their differences in opinions and takes a decision that she feels is best for both of them (all the while, remember, the guy is having the time of his life with other women) and breaks up with him. This is interpreted by the guy (and the guys watching the movie) as being ditched by her.

Later in the movie, Jhansi meets Karthik in Australia coincidently and tries to act aloof just to avoid further trouble between the two. This is interpreted by the guy (and, again, by the guys watching the movie) as being rude. After a series of expected and unexpected turn of events, songs, whatever…Jhansi finally gives her guy up to the gorgeous girl who comes out of nowhere and supposedly understands him perfectly well. This is interpreted by the guy (but NOT by the guys watching the movie) as a sane decision; he grabs the opportunity and marries the pretty girl. End of story!

Now, while the guy in the movie, right from the beginning to the end, is incapable of coming to any decent conclusion on the relationship, the guys watching the movie come to a conclusion that all women are arrogant, stubborn and rude just cos the role was projected that way in the movie and was enacted by an actress (Sadha) who was, incidentally, born with smug look on her face that even plastic surgeons couldn’t erase. So, for you guys who watched the movie and came to the same conclusion, let me tell you, you got the concept of the movie entirely wrong.

I actually liked the movie a lot (except for those scenes lifted straight from hindi movies…and the hero, Vinay, who sports a permanent ginger-eating-monkey** expression!) for the very reason that I liked the book “Men are from mars, women are from venus”. What the movie tries to bring out is that men and women are basically wired differently and that is something one has to keep in mind when trying to work out relationships issues. Instead, if you’re gonna keep cribbing all the time about your partner not understanding you and keep trying to shift the blame of every friction in the relationship over to the other side…well, what can I say, you are better off living with someone from your own planet.

The movie also sends another message to the women, a very required one: never take men seriously!

* When I say ‘guys’ I mean ‘most guys’, ’some guys’ or ‘few guys’ depending on how strongly you disagree with me

** If you are from Tamil Nadu, you must be familiar with the phrase, ginger-eating-monkey. If you aren’t, next time you see a monkey, try feeding it a piece of ginger, watch it’s expression and then, see the movie and let me know if you found a match!