Use Detergent/Wear Sunscreen

I met a woman the other day. And asked her about her favorite ads on television as a way to get some more ‘insight’ into what she was all about. Rather what her ‘attitude towards shopping’ was all about. Yes, that is of paramount importance to me nowadays.

She thought for some time, while I waited with a cultivated look of pleasant encouragement on my face. After some time, she said she liked the Pepsi ad featuring Mahendra Singh Dhoni best.

I laddered.

She described the ad. Minister ka beta. Line mein ghus jata hai. Dhoni kehta hai. Pyaas honi chahiye.

Why does she like the ad. What does it mean.

I laddered some more.

She said. Zindagi mein aage badhna ke liye pyaas honi chahiye. Yeh baat humko achhi lagi is ad mein.

This amazingly complex country.

In a village called Etaunja in Uttar Pradesh

Lives a woman, like every other woman

She goes out in ghoonghat

And runs the home with a measure tape

But she watches and she dreams

Thirsty dreams of unfettered flight

Aspiring India of the glorious ambitions

Your children go to school in collars of impeccable white.

The double O

First Love -

Is something else

A shrine to an innocent self

First Love -

Which when comes your way again

You brace to get overwhelmed - again

First Love -

Her walking into the room

After all these years, and it’s like the Mona Lisa

Overhyped. Overrated.

Yes, Emotional Atyachar

Dev D is the perfect movie. A coming together of people bursting with the juice.

The music oozes passion. Not only does it not stick-out like a sore thumb, it gives the movie direction. And Emotional Atyachar is well - the new anthem. The movie itself is brilliantly put together with pace changes and contextual lighting. Minimal dialogues. Raw.

Mahie Gill exudes sex appeal and energy. Kalki Koechlin is like a cat. Graceful and mysterious. And Abhay Deol. What can one say. Tortured. Absolutely.

The actors fit into their roles like cork in a champagne bottle. They are brilliant actors, no doubt. It’s mostly clever casting though.

Dev epitomizes obsession. Paro passion. And Chanda survival-instinct.

I am as taken by the characters as by the people who made them. So Anurag Kashyap encouraged Abhay Deol to drink while filming. And to land up on sets right out of bed. Hung-over. Mahie Gill broke a few doors, the hand-pump, somebody else’s hand and sprained her own ankle during the course of the movie. Chanda’s character was auditioned extensively, actors were give the orgasm part to read out. Kalki K didn’t know Hindi very well. But she spoke French and Tamil fluently and hence the final scene turning out the way it did.

There are movies and then there are movies. This one was a pleasant surprise. Watching it makes one wonder how it would be - to create your labor of love, to see it taking shape in front of you. To hit upon inspiration, to get others impassioned about your vision. To see yourself vindicated as the curtain falls. To lose yourself in front of the camera. To overcome the fears - of ridicule, failure and commoditization.

One of SRK's many quotable quotes - I leave behind a little bit of myself in each of my movies, and I fear that one day I will have nothing left.

Technicolor Dreamcoat

It struck me today that I am a boss-person. I get inspired by people around, maybe more than the work.

My room is a mess. There are things lying around. The bed is never made. Newspaper strewed. It still looks pretty damn neat. It is Wadala Sheraton, all said and done. How bad can it look. Like Aishwarya Rai having a bad hair day.

I don’t like the Sheraton though. It’s amazing how people have raved about it so much. I don’t want to live in a sone ka pinjra.

So trip to China happening sometime next month. Will like that. They have gorgeous hair. Should find out what the secret is. Can’t be good genes. Cant only be good genes.

The Chinese are secretive people. Inscrutable is the word. Plus they have the Mandarin. Must be a very narrow group of non-Chinese who can tell the Lee from the Loo.

I see people all around me trying to maintain the work-life balance. In fact, I am one of the last few to join the bandwagon. This says something about young people fresh-into-their-careers nowadays, does it not? And all of these people are ambitious, make no mistake. Coming of age, methinks. Of sensibilities.

'Sensibilities' seems to be my most oft-repeated word off-late.

The gist

It stares me in the eye
Like a sarkari office peon certain of my imbecility
I turn away
Chewing on my lower-lip in concentration

This question that comes up at times
The answer that I struggle with most times
Give me this day my daily bread
Also tell me how I should be

Should I stash my woes behind the daily dose (of laughter)
Or treat this life as pursuit for nirvana
Check for expiry dates and tell-tale signs on birthday gifts
Or maybe believe. Just believe

A goal. A goal. Should I set one
Or just drift along till I see someplace to anchor
Believe all men are born equal
But then why do so few rule and many others - just root

There is no - to be or not to be
Am and want to be
But what, and why, and how
That is mainly the question.

God in Gucci

I have discovered that when you boycott something, or proclaim disdain for it publicly, it is actually because you like it more than you care to admit, to the world, and sometimes, to yourself.

Like perfume. I never buy and rarely wear perfume. The only perfumes I own have been given to me by friends. Why? Because I don’t care to smell good? Wrong. Because smell to me is the most inebriating of senses, the most powerful, the most heavenly.

Smell is an obsession. I associate everything with smell. A sliver of a long-forgotten smell is like the key that opens long-locked doors inside my mind, the lubrication that gets those rusty hinges to swing.

The smell of my sister’s baby skin in the days when she would still let me hug her, the stench of Salt Lake City when I was a hot-headed-wear-heart-on-sleeve kinda punk kid, the cold remembrance of the air conditioning at Sinhal classes where I was easily the most painfully-shy, short-skirted, fifteen-year-old in her own ditsy Neverland, the perfumed nail-polish and the musty odor of second-hand Sweet Valley Highs from then, when I was quite the bimbo, the skin cream we all love to hate on my lips for the first time - the feeling’s gone, but the smell remains, the ghastly gobhi-aaloo when I would wake up feeling homeless and lost - remembering the smell of my mother’s love, the Vodka in plastic cups - brilliant hazy nights and freshly-laundered rosy mornings. And lately, the roses that smell of Hugo Boss.

The list is endless.

I love smell so much that I don’t think there is any smell in the world good enough for me. And so, I never wear perfume.

The same goes for love. People who say they don’t believe in love, in fact, believe in it so much that anything less than the over-powering, all-consuming, absolutely-exhilarating emotion is not acceptable - is not love.