Lifetime.....is it really a short period of time

As I reflect upon the past and I look into the future a familiar question pops up each and every time. What have I achieved in the past and what should I achieve in the near and distant future. A plethora of thoughts gush in to my small brain that is slowly but surely turning into mush with time. Unfortunately the goals of the future tend to overshadow the achievement of the past. I made a conscious decision to jot these ideas else I would lose track of them. Most of these goals were wants in life. Thank God for he has provided the basic needs, its the wants that I had to and have to strive for. Be it a BMW 7 series or the Maserati I set my eyes on when I was in the mall or the CEO that I want to be in the near future for a multi billion dollar company or even the founder of the small start up. The list never ends and trickles down to even things like the Apple Mac book Pro that I wanted to own for the past one year or the vacation to Europe and Egypt that my wife and I wanted to go next year. Too many things on the mind.

Scanning through these little things I wanted in life, I wanted to prioritize these goals and these action items needed a level of effort, time and resources. They also needed a great sense of commitment and dedication. Finances do play an important role. I need to invest to get a return on my investment. In a society that equates the financial quotient as a mark of success (in majority of cases), it is a tough trying to juggle and balance things.

Am I wasting too much time paying attention to things that are of little importance ....am i sleeping too much..... no i have lost enough sleep thinking about stuff and I think it is time to work out a plan that works. A plan for tomorrow, the day after and the rest of the days that happen in a Lifetime. Plans to make the best use of the time I have left as a tourist on this planet.

Slumdog.....applauded by the Rich

The slumdog millionaire, that won the BAFTA awards and the Golden Globes is being highly applauded by the elite in India. Reflecting upon the struggle of the Indian soul through the year's, one of the biggest industry that comes to mind is Bollywood that has undergone a paradigm shift in the new millennium. With a middle-class market of about half a billion ppl, Bollywood felt it could bypass the hinterland as well as middle India. The establishment of mega malls with multiplexes created the right ambience for this cash-rich class and also became a meeting place for the Indian rich and Famous and wannabe rich but by the sheer brutality of economics, excluded the masses that had created and built Bollywood in the first place.

The multiplex culture created a new way of making movies made by a new crowd (call it fresh talent) for a new crowd. Movies today do not exploit the acting prowess of its actors nor justify the character The movies have lost their own independent character and unique grammar, its own benchmark of excellence. We have so many more Hindi movies with English names. Even when the location of story is a remote village, The hero and heroine go for a song shot in New Zealand and the rich man's son in the village drives nothing less than a Ferrari. I do agree that the movie is an entertainment but the sheer lack of emotions, the height of hallucinations and lovey dovey tales filled with no adherence to reality is indeed flabbergasting.


If there's one thing that Slumdog Millionaire has exposed, it is the rootlessness of India's social elite. Isn't it ironic that the same class that booted out rural India, urban slums and every other ovestige of India Crying from mainstream Bollywood in its lust for feel-good cinema or would you call it getting tagged as a golden globe movie watcher, now claims to be enjoying Danny Boyle's movie? Appreciating Slumdog isn't a sign of its maturity and confidence, It is more an symbol of a set of people that is confused and want to watch a cinema since it has wom accolades outside your world. it is more an indicator of what the people are trying to be, some one else in a some other place like the hidden valley filled with treasures.


I feel this way after watching the movie as the movie is an sincere attempt at weaving the reality with fantasy which to suit the sensibilities of the current day Indian cinema which always has a happy ending and a rainbow in the sky. Finally I would conclude saying that we still appreciate a westerner's view point of a developing country irrespective of the movie being a reality or a fantasy. Time to get some roots that grow deep and wings strong enough to reach the skies.

Poetry or Perversion

A constant and affordable (i am not sure if it as affordable these days) source of entertainment has been the world of cinema. Be it for the class or the mass, the black and white movies or those in color, talkies or the modern day technically advanced action packed extravaganza, I am talking specifically about the world of Indian cinema, especially about Tollywood that I have grown up with.

I listen to music, listen to songs from the telugu movies and at times it just makes me wonder if i am bankrupt as far as my knowledge in telugu is concerned as it feels very taxing on the gray cells to make any sense of the lyrics, added to it are the horse and unpleasant voice of the singers that are rated to be the one of the best in the industry.

I have watched a few of these movies and i can relate to the situations that these songs have been sung and had the lead stars dance around with a dozen other people and i wonder if it takes a lot of poetic insight into the language to make sense or sometimes i feel it is pure perversion where some regular words have been knit craftily to convey a raunchy and bawdy meaning.