So what if I wear a skirt?

I turn on the TV and switch on the news. Yes, I'm sure you got where I'm going with this.

Um, just WHAT is happening in this country?

That girl, Damini/Nirbhaya/Delhi's brave heart, call her what you like. She wasn't my sister; no she wasn't even distantly related to me. As much as I am shocked and appalled on learning about the turn of events on the night of December 16, I am also saddened with the thinking and mentality of people in this place. Just today I saw some minister say on TV (and let me clarify, I heard this with my own ears) that we must ban skirts in school uniform. So was he suggesting that rapes take place because of skirts? Or that men cannot control their desperation? Or both?

According to me, the root problem is the male domination in our Indian society. Let's accept it, no matter what caste or religion, every one has it in the back of their minds that if you are a man, you have an upper hand over a woman. Everyone thinks like that - from young boys to drivers and even policemen. They think they can get away with anything. Also, the fact that we have such a weak and corrupt judiciary, makes it very believable that you'll get away Scott free for the most heinous crime.

One more thing I reflect upon is if a similar crime was committed where a man was a victim (just so you know, women are not the only ones who get raped), would it have been a similar situation? Would it have taken 13 agonizing days of protests to get the government to listen to us? I don't know, really, because it is the Indian government we are talking about. But then again, I'm sure action would've been speedy in this case.

Call me a feminist, but I really think change can begin at home. Teach your sons to behave. Teach them that every girl is not a disposable piece of glass that can be used and thrown around. Teach them to respect, not just women, but everyone.

Let us make sure that her death does not go in vain. Let us make sure that justice is served not just to her, but also to every other victim of this inhumanity. We have taken the first step, it's just about keeping the momentum up.

SHERLOCKED!!

So hey, I'm Sherlocked.

You must be wondering, "Oh dear god, she's late." Trust me, I don't blame you one bit. I have been told by a million and one to watch that show since god knows when. But I finally got myself to watch it after a lot of work! (which may or may not include my friends literally putting the seasons into my laptop)

Benedict Cumberbatch has the best British voice of all times or what?

Its just hard to compare something like How I Met Your Mother or Friends to Sherlock. You tend to get those glares, y'know, which mean "How could you possibly watch something like THAT?" Jeez person, peace out there. I love the best of everything! While How I Met Your Mother is a mindless rom-com (No offence, there), you actually need to be alert for every minute of Sherlock. Not just because you might lose track of the story line, but the British accent also takes some time to get used to.

Apart from that, what's up with the world these days? I have no idea about whatever is happening out there. Which is essentially sad, but, then again, you couldn't be half as bothered. My life over here has come down to studies, sitcoms, food, parties and now SHERLOCK!

OH DAMN, I have to get back to this so-called "Bootcamp" in college, as a part of the Business Communication assignment. Need to make a presentation on Richard Branson. All I know about him is that he owns the Virgin group. But from the looks of it that is surely not going to be enough.

Let's see, its 1.15 A.M. on the clock and I have the presentation the first hour tomorrow at 8. Do the math, while I get going. Adios amigos!

PS- Wish me luck! (Please!!)

The first month.

So I *finally* have time to write in this space. Actually it was never about not having time, I've just had so many things to figure out! New place, new people, new atmosphere. I'm used to most of it, but initially you do feel the culture shock. For example, my English, with its own twist of Tamil accent in it has changed to sound more like a North Indian speaking English with its own bits of "na" instead of a "no" like they say it in Chennai. "Eat na, thoda sa!" instead of "Eat some no?"

Plus after coming here, I realized my love for non-vegetarian food. Ufff, how could I ever live on "ghas-poos" for the rest of my life? The mouth watering chicken burger at Snack Point and the Butter Chicken with Butter Naan at Dollops! Too much good stuff to miss out on! Also the KFC over seems to be a little better than any other KFC I've been to!

Too many good things, too much to learn, and we all want to exhaust them all. Its just about the first two months when everything seems so perfect, so wonderful, but once you've been to all the place in a small town, you don't know what to do. Everything is fine until you get into that vicious cycle. Seniors keep saying "Arrey, even we said we'd never touch alcohol and cigarettes, but look at us now!". Very frankly, it freaks me out. But then again, its all in the head. And I know myself well enough to never give into it for such things. In fact, I got a friend here to quit! Don't know how much of a role I played in it, but as long as I've given some bit of sense to someone, it motivates to never let into it either. In the end its all about saying one simple word- NO.

All I can say a month and half later is that I'm loving it. Really really loving it.

Like this!

What actually bugs me a lot is this game of "likes" on Facebook. 50 likes, 100 likes and the latest benchmark created by this random friend (whom I didn't know existed until, well, today). She had 240 likes on her display picture. Seriously? To be frank, that picture was not even so great. The photo was probably taken from a Blackberry Curve phone (I have this incredible talent to tell what camera was used to take a certain picture, call it the photographer's eye). Some minor editing, airbrushed to perfection and bam, 240 likes in 4 hours of upload. I'm usually not bothered about the likes someone else gets; but let's be honest, if we got that kind of "liking", we would be happy souls too. Today, though, it got on my nerves. I thought I should get to the bottom of this. I went to her profile and saw she had 1,040 friends. That moment, I got rid of all my irritation. When I joined Facebook in 2009, I was naive and there was this sort of competition to add as many people on Facebook as you could. The more friends one had, the more of a status they got. At a point I had 563 virtual friends. Very recently did I realize that I was a fool to have done that. I had to take the pain of deleting almost half of them, and a few whom I just didn't like. I had a couple of friends who said that having those many people on the list was not a big deal, but I was firm about getting rid of people whom I didn't know/like. I mean, isn't Facebook about "friends"? We add "friends", not "people-you-might-know-or-might-have-seen"!

Coming back to that girl. She had 1,040 friends. Obviously, she would get those many likes. Some of the "likes" must have happened accidentally, some might have liked it in a sarcastic manner, and only a very minor portion would have actually, genuinely, "liked" the picture. Its not just about clicking that one button - one must actually think that the picture is worth a like. I know I must seem like I'm making a big deal out of this, but seriously, I feel its time for people to rise above the vicious circle of "likes". Its slightly depressing to see girls put up statuses and self-obsessed pictures that scream "LIKE THIS THING PLEASE!". I am guilty of having done it myself, but good brains dawned upon me eventually. And thank god for that!

Movie Review- ISHAQZAADE

“Ishaqzaade hain jitne fasaanon mein, milte hain kahaan ab jahanon mein”

To be very frank, the tagline, the rusticity of the poster, the sheer brash acting I saw in the trailers, and most importantly the music, made me think that this one would be a winner. But as they say, don’t judge a book by its cover, or rather, a movie by its poster.

The movie is based in a remote village of Uttar Pradesh (Almor), and we are reminded about the hatred and enemity between the Chauhans and Qureshis till the very end. Majorly, this is a simple, yet not so simple love story between Parma (Chauhan) and Zoya Quershi (or as Parma says “Joya” in his attempt to portray a heavily accented villager). Both are equally ambitious, and can kill to have their way. While Arjun Kapoor manages to impress me in his debut with his “spoilt kid” act, Parineeti Chopra’s innocence and acting abilities are applaudable. When these two souls from different worlds, yet similar lifestyles meet, a love story happens. The (t)horny love story is not something you would be expecting.

The “intimate” scenes are infact, VERY intimate. They could totally give the scenes in “The Dirty Picture” a run for its money. However, when you look beyond it, the movie seems to fall into place, atleast in the first half. That is probably not because of the story (which is, by the way, extremely predictable), but because of the dynamic performances by the lead pair. Chanda, the bar girl played by Gauhar Khan, brings the much needed softness and ‘aman-shanti’ the audience requires in this fast-paced movie.

The place where the movie really takes a dip however, is the second half. The predictability of the movie just increases and you would very well know what the climax is in the pre-climax scene.

The music given by Amit Trivedi needs special mention. Songs like “Pareshan” and the title track are gripping and would be running in your mind even after the movie is over. All in all, the movie is not bad for a one time watch, but definitely won’t make you crave for its DVD and will be easily washed out of your memory. I give it 2.5 stars. 

Shutterbugg'd - I

Did I mention putting up pictures that I clicked? Well here are some of them.
Hopefully, I'll keep uploading as I come across more interesting things in nature, and life.

"And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns."- Thomas Moore

"All flowers in time bend towards the sun, I know you say there's no one for you, But here is one."- Jeff Buckley

"All nature wears one universal grin"- Henry Fielding

"A kitten is chiefly remarkable for rushing about like mad at nothing whatever, and generally stopping before it gets there."- Agnus Repplier

Many The Miles.

Day 11- 21^st September, 2011.

Long time, hey. It’s been a busy, busy, busy week last week. I mentioned going to Ooty and Masinagudi for a school trip, right? Yeah, it was fun. Lots of fun. Of course I’m going to go into the details; I want you to know that I don’t have a very boring life after all.

We had a long way to go.

So we left on Tuesday, the umm...13^th I think. My mother went to Mumbai to see my dad while I was away, so I went to Aku’s after school, and we went to the railway station together. We reached the station at 8 on the dot, and for once our train was not delayed. But it was too early to make assumptions, keeping in mind the efficiency of our brilliant railway system.

Our train departed for Coimbatore at 9 in the night, and at 9:30, we stopped at Thiruvallur station like we did at every other station that came in our way. We were all super excited, so no one realized that we were going to be at the station for the next 6 hours. 6 hours. Not a joke. Apparently, there had been a rain accident where two trains collided and got derailed about 2 stations away from where we were. Yes, 10 kilometers. It’s not even funny.

And the reason? The brilliant train driver was oh-so-busy talking on the phone. No, totally justified. A phone call is definitely more important than 150 passengers on the train, no? He missed the signal, and when he realized that it was too late, he jumped out of the train with amazing grace. This calls for a round of applause, everyone. 15 dead, 70 injured. And apart from that, we were stuck for just 6 hours. Only.

We reached Coimbs (sounds pretty funky, na?) next day at 7 in the evening instead of 4 in the morning, running about half a day behind schedule. We went to this kind of posh hotel called Aloft, owned by one of my classmates. The rooms were pretty cool. Actually anything would have felt better after that disgusting, cockroach infested, 24 hour train journey. So yeah, Aloft gave me some hopes of our trip getting better. I tagged along with Anju, Esha and Aku into room no. 217. As soon as we entered, everyone took a bath to get rid of the stink. That train journey was good enough to give me a good night sleep.

The next day we proceeded to Destiny Farm in Ooty. The BEST part of our entire journey. The rooms, the view, the people, the social night! But all good things come to an end too soon. So instead of staying there for two days, we stayed there only for one, and then left for Masinagudi. We stayed in Casa Deep Woods, one of the best (apparently) over there. It was okay-ish. After experiencing Club Mahindra in Munnar and Kodai, Masinagudi was kind of a disappointment. But it’s okay, as long as you know how to have fun, right?

The last day, we left for Mysore. We were 12 girls and 8 guys in one bus. Good fun. Except the part where I had to sit in the last row. My back still aches. Ouch.

All in all, good or bad, it was an experience. The last one.