History –||– Fiction

I was at the library looking for a few books to read in the India Collection. A (good-looking) girl walked up to me and started observing the books. She started talking (to me, it was apparent) that these were all history books and asked “where is fiction?” I replied, “Fiction is on the other side.”

A moment later, it struck me how the make-believe industry works: history, when crosses over to the other side, turns into fiction!

 

The deeper meaning of liff…

Life brings you to strange crossroads at times, when someone else makes the choices of directions for you. Not that it happens quite often with everyone, but when it does, it alters your perception of the meaning of life. A couple of weeks ago, Someone stepped away. For ever. Perhaps that was the way things were meant to turn, and this too, was to be part of my identity.

The events that followed set me on a renewed quest, for I had almost lost touch of a few things I had been planning to do for long. So, the first thing I did was go about the city and click a lot of pictures – something I had always talked about, but never really got around to accomplish! I walked past Kala Ghoda, Lion Gate, Hornimon Circle, and the Stock Exchange, clicking places that have always fascinated me, those that were described in Shantaram and Maximum City. They remind me of the Gujarati novel Saraswatichandra as well…

Looks like I managed to capture a number of hues and shades of this city, which, as I’ve always said, has taught me “The Art of Letting Go”. Here are few of the pictures, and a few more of these, coming soon.

Next, I caught a movie for the first time on the day it released! Saw Rock On, I must admit, a bit reluctantly. Not bad an experience, though it brought back quite a few memories from long forgotten years.

On to the movie, now: Farhan Akhtar and his team had put in a lot of effort to pull it off with style, and introduce the theme of rock to the Indian audience. Still, the flick missed the fine point of balance between being serious and being light. The humour is absolutely lame. The only genuine attempt at humour during the entire movie was at the end of the film, when they put up a message “Do not download the music, buy the CD.”

Overall, the flick sounded like a potential sequel to Dil Chahta Hai, but it killed the fun, since the theme was shamelessly copied from Jhankaar Beats, from which, as NB said, it is difficult to find any flaw.

Nevertheless, all this ranting (both, about life, people and the film) is like “chaar aane ki murghi, barah aane ka masala” since it serves nothing when you ask ‘why’! The message: it’s never too late, life’s still beautiful and yada yada yada. Go, catch up.

Maqtoob!

 

Freedom Fried!

More than three years now, and the ever-so-pious Americans are on a tryst of revelatory that questions the devilish advocacy of the war against terror by Bush and Co in Iraq. The largest democracy in the world continues its tradition to ridicule the democracy around the world. The self-proclaimed peacekeepers of the world have maintained this tradition for more than six decades now, without fail. The pity is it still goes on, and the tyranny remains unopposed.

Since 2003, the Americans promised the world a free Iraq and posed themselves as the liberators of the Iraqi populace and the Hollywood-styled saviors of the world from the terrorists and weapons of mass destruction supposedly sheltered by Iraq. The allegations made, were that Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction and had ties to Al Qaeda. More than 450,000 civilian and non-civilian Iraqis dead as against about 15,000 soldiers of the coalition forces dead, the conflict still continues, and people are still dying every day in Iraq. Close to $8.8 billion of Iraq’s wealth went missing within the first 14 months of the American occupation in Iraq, as per George Galloway, the British MP who had declared to the world well before the commencement of war – that Iraq did not have any weapons of mass destruction, neither did the nation had any connection with Al Qaeda. In a quite amateurish manner, the US senate had recently accused Galloway of corruption in Iraq, to which he rebutted in a spectacular manner.

Finally, while Saddam Hussein is in captivity of the US, the Americans are still unable to find any evidence of weapons of mass destruction and the said links to Al Qaeda (A PDF file of the 151-page US Senate report declaring the inexistence of such evidence), Bush still emphasizes the need for an American presence in Iraq. Now, when a more-or-less similar situation has developed in Iran and disruption has just taken a halt in Lebanon, it has to be seen what turns out to be the new face of peace! Since I have made mention of Lebanon, an interesting point to note is that the two soldiers kidnapped by the Hezbollah (the kidnapping was the very reason for Israel to wage an offensive, which claimed the lives of thousands of Lebanese civilians) are still to be rescued – even after three weeks that Israel has announced a cease-fire. How would Israel justify these numerous deaths?

And how true it is, that IF YOU HAVEN’T DONE ANYTHING WRONG, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT!

And what about the citizens of the world’s largest democracy? See for yourself!

**Illustration Courtesy (Again): Shannon Wheeler, Too Much Coffee Man (Oh well, you know they’ve been shamelessly picked up from his site. But then, why did he put them up there? Never mind. That’s his problem.

 

It rained, and I’d been by the sea!