The Countdown is on

Taking a break from my views on the world around, I am here discussing my last few days in College. And I couldn't think of a better time to write this piece than in one of my classes. My teacher probably is under the impression that I am working on some program or maybe he knows I am busy with something else, and has got sick of trying to make us work.

So how has this week been? Not very good, contrary to our expectations :(

I am thinking of the first week we had in college and how we became one big group of friends. There was an instant chemistry and we all hit off instantaneously. As time went by, things kept changing and so did our group. The base remained the same but some people left and some came. Everytime after someone left we used to think that now things would remain the same but how wrong we were or who could have thought that the last week would bring a shocker. I am not here to comment on who is/was right or who is/was wrong, just that ain't feeling very good about it. But then life doesn't stop no matter what. We still have a long way to go and I still will hope that no more problems come amongst us though I know it maybe Hoping against hope but hope is all that there is.

IPL

Who says IPL is going out of India, its just changed its name-INDIAN POLITICAL LEAGUE. The mega event of Indian Politics is back and seems its bigger.How I wish I could have said, bigger and BETTER. But, sadly our politicians don't give us that privilege. Below the belt remarks have become fashion of the day. Manmohan and Congress attack Advani & Advani and BJP attack Manmohan.

It just looks as if issues and ideology have no space in this great extravaganza of Indian democracy. All this talk about secular and non-secular forces is crap. Each and every party is an equal shareholder in this. Just that some use it to woo the hindus, some to woo the muslims and every community that exists. Besides that what issues are there, no1 mentions economy, no1 mentions national security, no1 mentions the education system,corruption and everything that should be talked about and isn't. Though I wouldn't say that only the politicians are to be blamed. I think the media is an equal party to all this drama. For example, I totally agree that Whatever Varun Gandhi said was absurd and nonsense( i.e. if he did, I dont wanna court controversy myself...lol) but did it really deserve the airtime it got. The media takes shelter that its their duty to report such instances but were they really reporting. For 1 week, the only thing that was there on the news channels was Varun Gandhi, as if the rest of world had seized to exist. I am sure our dear PM and PM-in-waiting both say some substantial things in their press conferences and public meetings but all we get to see is masala. I think the media is working for TRP's rather than journalism.

Coming to the latest news i.e. Advani challenging Manmohan Singh to have a live TV debate. I somehow like this idea a lot.Mr Advani being a seasoned politician that he is, always knew that the congress would never accept this proposal as his counterpart is nowhere near him when it comes to debating and oratory skills, probably used it as a ploy to score some brownie points among the voters who were the proponets of such a concept. But despite that Congress could have handled it better but on the contrary Congress' reply was really funny, They ofcourse refused citing that we don't have a presidential type of election and our voters vote for the MP, not the PM. I think we all know what parliamentary system we follow but despite this, I think we don't always vote for the MP, the national leadership matters a lot. While voting we all need to know what exactly our probable prime ministers stand for and taking forward what congress said, why don't we have local debates between the MP candidates as well. I think it would be a good idea because afterall our country has to move forward from where votes are cast on the basis of religion or on the basis of how much money a specific candidate is offering for a vote. For this there will have to be a conscious effort from all sections of the society, till then its all a masala movie and this time Manmohan and Advani are playing the leads.

Is Slumdog Millionaire INDIAN!

Slumdog Millionaire, the oscar winning movie set in d slums of mumbai has "taken indian cinema to a new level" some say. To that statement I would agree in parts. First of all, I dont feel that We need an american academy to judge whether our cinema is good or not. Indian cinema has always been a force to reckon. Look at TIME'S top 100 movies of the 20th sentury. 3 outright Indian movies make d cut. Whether you agee with the list or not is a different issue altogetther. Shekhar kapoor is a name that sells in the west(He gave us Masoom,Mr India & Bandit Queen). The list of examples showin that Indian Cinema has conquered the world goes on and on.Now comes the question whether its Indian or not, I dont think just beacause a movie is set in India, it can be called an Indian movie because otherwise a lot of our movies wont be indian as indian directors love "foreign locales". The movie has been directed by a british and d lead actor is an NRI(even kal penn is an NRI,we dont consider Harold n kumar series as Indian). But, a very strong Indian Connection does exist. AR Rahman, Freida Pinto(She is no NRI as some people have said) and Anil Kapoor, who it seems has just been missed by everyone. I personally feel Anil Kapoor's was arguably the best performance in the movie, how short it might have been. The world is hailing Rahman and Freida but our Mr. India has somehow been ignored.Getting back to the core issue, Slumdog Millionaire is an Indian story being potrayed by largely indian actors but through the eyes on a british director. Whether you call it Indian or not, its your take!