An important movie

Vishaal Bard-waj’s Mirchand of Varanasi is not only one of the best movies he’s made in the last six months, it’s also an absolutely stunning literary achievement by someone we can only gape at in dumbstruck awe.

One catches an early glimpse of the auteur at work in the opening sequence. Irfan Khan who plays Mirchand tells Anayat Khan (played by Shaahid Kapur) ‘I’ll give you a loan only if you create communal harmony in India’, a subtle nuanced tongue-in-cheek dig at India’s volatile communal situation. Anayat Khan, not to be left behind retorts ‘The loan is to buy bason ka laddoo’. Doesn’t take a genius to catch the reference to Shakespeare there – bason for Bassanio – Wow!

Anayat Khan’s ship sinks in Palk strait – Sri Lanka’s human rights’ situation has never been captured as metaphorically as this – a staggeringly clever take, and he's unable to repay the loan.

Anayat, the Poor Shia (Portia?) has to now defend himself in court – an audacious reduction of wasteful characters and plot. The detailing of the court is exquisite, with a large black board saying ‘Court’ in white letters. Anayat defends himself gamely, his speech peppered with unrelated statements about various important issues thereby distracting the judge.

Mirchand is willing to accept repayment in kind but Anayat, in a hat-tip to the original, says he may take exactly one kg of laddoo and no more – which sort of backfires because Mirchand does do that – a clever departure from the original, nonetheless. The audience is visibly stunned at the denouement and also at the fact that the Bard trilogy now officially has 4 movies so there’s no stopping Vishaal from adapting another of Shakespeare’s works.

Method acting

Piggy : What's the role? It better be something meaty like Janjeer where I had 2 songs
Director : This is a biopic, based on Mari Kom.
P : Eh?
D : She's a boxer
P : So? What's the role?
D : You play her. You play a boxer.
P : God! Let me make this easy. Was this Mari girl rich or poor?
D : Poor.
P : Then say that na? So I play the Agneepath character. Poor chokri with colourful clothes. I can put on my poor girl accent which is easy - just got to say 'Ai' before each sentence.
D : She's from the North east.
P : Dombiville?
D : North east India. Manipur.
P : So? She was poor no?
D : Yes.
P : So I play Agneepath girl.
D : She won the World Boxing championships for India
P : She became rich after that?
D : I mean she's alright now. I'm not sure. She's probably not poor now.
P : I've lost you. Tell me clearly if you want me to play poor girl or rich girl? Rich girl will be Dostana girl - fashionable types. Either that or Dharavi girl where I say 'Ai' and maybe some Marathi words like 'ki haal putthar'
D : You've got to do some boxing on screen
P : Ok. Boxing. North east. How many songs do I have?
D : None. Maybe some inspiring songs.
P : There is a third option just for you, special - I can play a singer and sing my own songs with autotune. Maybe make the central character a singer instead of a boxer.
D : This is a biopic about a world champion
P : Who is a poor little girl from Manipal
D : Manipur
P : 'Coach - main boxing karthi? ayyo, achi achi boxing karthi'. How's that for Manipuri accent?
D : Er...not bad
P : Done then. I'm going to stay in character now. Mari Kaum meri naam, boxing meri kaam.

Smiti Kirani mulls setting up HRD Ministries in each state

The press got a glimpse of the ambitious new education plan of the HRD Ministry on Monday when the Minister Smiti Kirani unveiled the roadmap to creating an IIT in every nook of the nation. 'No one should walk more than 400 metres to the nearest IIT' she said. The prestigious IITs have been franchised to Cafe Coffee Day and are opening branches at a scorching pace across the nation. At the inaugural of the 10,000th outlet, the Minister said this expansion would find a new fillip in the new scheme where each state is planned to have a central HRD Ministry staffed by the retired cast and crew of 'Kyunki saas bhi...', a sitcom that was wildly popular till Smiti left it to join politics. It is rumored that the Relyance Group has approached the ministry with an 'IIM in every petrol bunk' scheme that could again change the face of higher education in the nation.

A letter to my two year old self from my four year old self

Dear two year old me,
Why did you break all those neat toys by banging them together with your bare hands? You suck. I have nothing to play with now because of you.
Be gentle on yourself. I mean don't keep banging your head against the wall. People tell me I'm a bit weird and I'm sure it's because of you.
Treasure your relationships. The old ayah in your time was so sweet, you chased her away with your bawling, now I'm stuck with this super-strict young thing.
It's ok to not have everything figured out when you're two. Hell, I'm almost 4 now, and even I have doubts about the life path that I have chosen i.e. to be a time travelling astronaut.
Worry as much as you want, but don't let worry run your life. You're more than your anxieties. You have the wall-banging thing, the toy breaking thing and the ayah chasing thing for instance.
Most of all, be yourself. You'll face all sorts of pressures from your family who'll say 'hey, two bucks says my son can make like a goat' or 'hey do that pig face for uncle and aunty if you want a chocolate' but never ever give in.
Lots of love,
Your 4 year old self.

An alternative PIL

To the honourable principal judge
Herewith mentioned are grounds for stopping the sale and purchase of Vendy Doniger's 'The Hindus - An alternative history'
- The book is too long. Hinduism is not that long. It's easy to explain, even to little children. Why should she write 900 pages? This proves mala fide intent beyond any doubt.
- The book is heavy. The hardback weighs 1.5 kg.
- It's boring. I couldn't get past...well...let's say I didn't have to read it to know what's in it. Why write so much? That too alternative history. I might as well read the correct history if I'm going to invest that kind of effort.
- It's full of factual inaccuracies. Amazon, for eg., says it's one book. Can one book have 900 pages and weigh 1.5 kg? No, it's at least 4-5 books. If you buy it and keep it in a shelf unread as you're likely to do, I'm told it naturally disintegrates into 4 books over time.
- It should be titled 'All the people who've ever lived - an alternative history'. Even if you devote one line to talk about each Hindu who's ever existed, it won't be as long as this book - so she's definitely talking about all communities. In fact I'm told she talks extensively about cows and buffaloes also. It should then simply be titled 'Everything - a comprehensive saga in 5 parts which has been made into one humongous book through a miracle of binding'.
- Free speech is fine by me but exactly how much of it is permissible? If each person is allowed free speech worth 900 pages, imagine the chaos. And that too with unsuitable titles. Let's say I write a book about fruits and flowers with no photos and in Arial 4 font covering a 1000 page sprawl and call it 'Christians - a crisp one page snapshot'. I'll then get a friend to write a blurb saying 'A quick light hearted romance. Pick this up if you have a 1 hour flight'.
- The book sees Hinduism through a very western and outsider perspective of publishing very large books with more than 900 pages which is essentially a western concept.
Given the above, I humbly seek a quick pulping or at least a severe shortening of the book and addition of funny illustrations every alternate page.
- Dinanot

Googleplus acquires everyone's mobile phones for 4 trillion

Google got back at Facebook today in a stunner of a corporate move, rendering its acquisition of Whatsapp virtually unviable in one stroke.
"We are delighted to announce that we have bought all the people's mobile phones for 4 trillogazillion dollars. This will give our technology and hardware practice the much needed fillip and take us into the next decade on a comfortable footing", the Google-plus spokesperson said today. Preempting the most likely question, he said that Whatsapp will be allowed to operate on these phones unhindered and there will not be any immediate integration into Googleplus or other google products. However given that there are no users on these phones, the revenue from the app is expected to fall significantly.
In reply to a question about people buying new phones in the future and using Whatsapp, he said that contrary to analyst reports, Google's acquisition kitty is still not empty, indicating that more phone purchases are to be expected.

Date a girl who dates

Date a girl who dates. Date a girl who spends her money on boys instead of books or clothes or travel. Who has problems with closet space because she has too many boys stacked up there. Date a girl who has a list of boys she wants to date and that's what she ever wanted to do.
You’ll know when you see her because she'll have a boy around, taking her instructions. She’s the girl sitting with her boyfriend in the coffee shop down the street. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who date do not like to be interrupted. He might give you a glare too because boys who date also do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the boy who's with her.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of the guy she's sitting with.
It’s easy to date a girl who dates. It's much tougher to date a girl who doesn't. That element of coercion is no longer considered legal in most countries. Give her boys for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of men. Give her Homer, Joyce, Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Or other men without funny literature-type names.
Lie to her. If she understands men, she will understand your need to lie. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who dates knows failure.
If you find a girl who dates, keep her close. For obvious reasons. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a boy to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. And him. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. Though the guy might too, sometimes. Lose the guy preferably.
Date a girl who dates because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. But if you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who dates.
Or better yet, date a girl who dates girls.

Post feminism

Dear diary,
You won't like believe what like happened to me today. I went over to our neighbours' for tea after their repeated like invitations. Big Mistake. Unsuspecting li'l ole me enters and guess what! Aunty says 'Come in, beta, we've been expecting you, sit here'
Like I don't know where to sit just because like you know I'm a mod young woman. Well, forgive me, old lady, I have a life!
Soon enough, Uncle launches into intimate personal territory. Uh oh. Here it comes. 'Where do you work beta?'. Man o man! Don't tell me you don't get the subtext. What he actually meant to ask is 'Why do you work, you're a woman. You should be married by now and have 10 kids'
Well, old man, you are a 60 year old loser who didn't get anywhere in life, you don't have the right to judge me, please! Your wife may be the types who does karva chauth, I'd rather just kill myself than do all that shit. And the brazen duo weren't done just yet.
'Pass the water zara'. Right, like a traditional bharatiya naari. Why don't I just marry your son and massage your feet, you old sod? My only humble, humble question to you is what frikkin business is it of yours when I get married or if at all, and when I have kids. You didn't think twice before sending your idiot son abroad and let him settle there, did you? Fancy NRI job for your son, but when it comes to your neighbour who's a woman and who you call beta fondly, she has to deal with 'where do you work?' and 'pass the water'? Well, no disrespect, but here's a thought. Why don't you and your wife frikkin mind your own business like?
How much longer will we women be shackled by societal rules? This old couple decides when I get married? When I do it with my husband and how many times? Well, I have two words for you, get frikkin lost!
Diary, remind me to never eva eva again accept an invitation from this senile couple that's stuck in a time warp, in an era where women were supposed to follow their rules.
And remind me every day that I'm free. I'm me. G'nite!

Volunteering

Him: "So how long have you been associated with this NGO?"
Me: "A year now, what about you?"
Him: "This is my first visit actually. I got a call from Arvind last week asking if I would like to volunteer with his organisation sometime. I said pehle tho let me come and take a look at the facilities and the kind of work you do..."
Me:"Oh ok"
Him:"It's important to be very clear you know, so that's why I'm here to see what his NGO does. If I have to give time on weekends, and you know how that is, we work on weekdays and weekends are to relax..."
I had a vague sense that I should have hovered around 'where do you work-where do you live-how do you commute-so much traffic' type small talk. I wouldn't have had to listen to this guy's philosophy of work then.
Me: "So, busy job eh? Where do you work?"
He didn't take the bait though.
Him: "At a bank. So this better be worth it. It needs to be meaningful. And you know what I'm most worried about?"
That you have priced your weekend time out of the market, so now no one wants to spend weekends with you and you will die alone on a Sunday afternoon. He didn't wait for a response.
Him: "About political affiliation. Know what I mean? The last, the absolute last thing I want is to be a piece of someone's political agenda."
What in hell's name was this guy yapping about? What did volunteering to play football with some slum children have to do with politics?
Him: "Or even worse, religious propaganda. You know? Like, we need to see if their sources of funding are clean."
Who's we?
Me: "So how do you plan on contributing in case, you know, they 'pass' your screening?"
Him: "I like to take my time, I'll probably be an observer for a bit"
He wants to watch some kids play football and add that as his CV point.
Him: "I think it'll probably be inputs on systems and processes. I'm an MBA"
Do you know the difference between a system and a process even? Your brain and your mouth, for example, form a system. Establishing that you're an opinionated non-value adder everytime you open your mouth to talk, is a process.
Me: "Right, so you'll watch the games on weekends..."
Him: "Not right away. I think I have some free slots in March - I hope to get more actively involved then. All that's if I find the organisation neutral, if you know what I mean. Hahahaha"
Me: "Haha haha"
I have no spine. My knowing half laugh meant I'm now a co-conspirator in this religio-politico meaningfulness NGO audit where this weirdo will decide whether the NGO is worth the zero value that he brings to the table. That does it. I do not want this guy to ever turn up again.
Me: "Why are our free t-shirts saffron-green. Hmm, wonder if that means something"
Him: "You think? Noooo I don't think so...you think? Hmm"