World Green Day Day

Today is the day we unanimously celebrate a musical magic called Green Day. Coincidentally, today also marks the day the title of their popular song 'Wake Me Up When September Ends' automatically turns into tweet for countless non-fans (because it's easier to count the number of fans); not to forget Facebook status updates of those glorious disciples of copy-paste who won't even bother to give credit to the aforesaid rock band. Anyway, everything is forgiven and forgotten and f—ed on Internet. Besides, thanks to our insomnia, not many are going to turn into desi Rip van Winkle and sleep the coming month out. That's simply not going to happen. But somewhere deep inside us, we hope it does. Like fall asleep and skip a month or two? Wouldn't that be something? I mean, other than death itself! Whatever. By the way, please don't forget to wake me up when this world ends in December. 

Blossoms of monsoon

One rainy night, he looked out of his window and then peeked into himself. The contrast between crowd and loneliness was evident like never before. He pondered for a minute and then took out his smartphone to foolishly text "I think I'm falling for you!" to an unsuspecting female friend. She, on the other side of the town, picked up her cellphone in return and read his loud message under her noiseless breath. Since chivalry was synonymous with this guy, it was bit of a shock to her to receive something as straightforward as this from a person like him. Well, love indeed makes people act in irreversibly weird ways. So she too decided to act weirder and didn't reply a word. But then she couldn't sleep either and the same was true about her poor cellphone. After all, she kept reading the message again and again as if it revealed her entire future. In the end, she replied "Think again!" unlocking a brand new gate of conversation.

Taking giant leaps

Lance Armstrong may have cheated at the Tour de France but his testicles are a pair of inspiration for millions out there. Like he once said, "One small step for man, a giant leap for steroids." Actually these are not his actual words. They were something to the effect of "If I can beat cancer, i can bloody beat anything—even WADA!" Alright, he never really said them either. But you get the point, right? Oh, you don't? Well, if you aren't aware YET, Lance has been stripped of all the titles he won between '98 and '05 at Tour de France on charges of doping. But what is interesting (and nonetheless, hypocritical) is that the other cycling championships he won during the same period remain his. At least for the time being. In any case, it's difficult to gauge a guy who fought testicular cancer only to bounce back into the annals of legends. Now, with this shocking news of his court-martial spreading far and wide, cycling as a sport is going to suffer the most. After all, we've got to keep in mind that bicycles are the vehicle of the future as the oil is depleting and horses won't continue to tolerate human nonsense. If this notion sounds farfetched, so be it. But what's more contemporary is the fact that Lance proved that it's humanly possible to win the most gruelling sporting event on earth seven times in a row (drugs or no drugs). And what happened to him also shows that in the race called life, even doping doesn't help.

PS: Coming back to another Armstrong named Neil to whom the original quote is attributed, i hope he takes a halt at Moon on his way towards Heaven. If those conspiracy theories are false, he was the closest a human could get to the farthest point possible for the first time ever. I didn't know you were alive and now i learn of your demise. Ignorance is a bitch. RIP, sir. 

'Help' yourself to it!

     A whodunnit usually doesn’t carry the burden of ethical or social lessons but this movie chooses to do the exact opposite. It begins with a bright day in the Capital but eventually ends up throwing light on the darker and narrower mindset of a well-fed society when it comes to dealing with underprivileged servants inside their spacious home. At the same time, the plot makes sure that the audience has a different perspective for a change too and involves a pair of British eyes to do the job.

A still from the film

     Set in Delhi, a rich yet dysfunctional family is preparing to welcome a foreign guest with aplomb. But within minutes, it becomes apparent that this guy has been robbed of his money. And toeing the line of Bollywood clichés, the needle of doubt points towards the domestic help. What follows is a trail of misdemeanor on one end and helplessness on the other—both connected with moments of laughter, awkwardness and ultimate closure.

     For a debutant director-writer, Prashant Nair has heralded a promising start though he could have focused more on the characters than the predictable climax itself. The reason being simple: the people in his film are flawed, real and engaging. It could have been any other city in the country but these folks shared the same Indian sentiments; unabashed hypocrisy being the most evident.

    The casting is near-perfect. At times, Lee Williams reminds you of Martin Henderson from Bride and Prejudice. Anjali Patil’s dusky features coupled with an elusive performance as a maid steals the show. However, it is Lillete Dubey and Kulbhushan Kharbanda who convincingly exhibit the charm of a disgruntled couple. Victor Banerjee is present as well as absent on the screen.

     In a nutshell, this is the kind of story that needs to be told as its moral echoes today in every Indian household that employs a servant.

Where are Jack's sparrows?

The birds outside my window haven't figured out what exactly is their problem—the fact that I'm a human or that they aren't. In either case, they have an upper hand. They can fly away any given time whereas I'll be stuck here in my four-walled cage fondly called home. Besides, nothing can stop these tiny creatures of nuisance from the nature's inimitable gift of chirping; especially during dawn. They tell us something but we don't get it. Our syntax differs. But they won't give up until we learn whatever they are trying to teach us. Meanwhile, they love to mock us. Don't know how but the early morning somehow always appears hilarious to them. Perfect harmony results between the empty sky and the boisterous little fellas. And they just can't stop laughing at our world and then follow the act with an item number. At which point, these brownish toys realize that they have a khi-khi-khi song to sing in chorus and move their tail in accordance with their bony wings. What a marvelous sight! Katrina can learn something from them. For instance, dance like there's no YouTube. One more admirable aspect is their utter outspokenness. They don't even defer to pigeons and crows of the city. Adaptation is one thing and adoption, totally another. Maybe this is also the reason why sparrows don't welcome the sun like they once used to. The language remains unlearned and the lessons, untouched. Time is running out and they are flying away. Perhaps the beloved sparrows too have left for the wild fleeing this doomed city.

Caught in the heist

Sometimes, you look up to someone as your role model and then they goof up. That's what happened with Fareed Zakaria. As of now, the celebrated columnist has been given a clean chit on plagiarism charges and reinstated too. But he's not the first to steal something from someone and pass it off as his own. Nearly everybody does that. Like we show off an iPad as if we invented it. And if my memory serves me right, Prometheus stole the fire and put it up on eBay for sale—thus angering both Olympus and that hapless Stone Age guy who rubbed flintstones. Talking of anger, Rajat Gupta must be feeling deeply sorry for himself as he didn't even rob a dollar. The lecturer in him was just sharing knowledge. Oops, bad luck. The greater trouble, however, is that overachieving folks like him had already reached the pinnacle of their field. And what they don't realize is that they are harming those they once inspired. I don't know much about insider trading but i see how plagiarism works. After all, I'm pretty active on Twitter (not as much as I'd like to but still). On the timeline, the day someone starts plagiarizing your lousy tweets is the day you actually arrive. On the contrary, nobody needs to arrive on Facebook. The reason being very simple: Famous-quotes beget one-liners beget copy-paste. Personally, i don't give a damn about credit as long as I'm getting paid for my lame tweets and blogs (which I'm not). At the end of the day, we'll be forgotten like the rest of them. Only our work will be remembered and if we are lucky enough, shall get plagiarized too.

"You plagiarist, you stole my f—ing quote!" - what one Anonymous said to another

Hue, us and them

    There is no point in teaching darkness a lesson or two in racism. It won't understand. In any case, almost every little thing under the sun has a grey shade. Unless you are in Antartica. Moreover, only penguins have the right to see things in black and white. That's also why they choose not to fly and play chess all day. No kidding. But what recently happened in Wisconsin and what's currently going on in Assam as well as Myanmar tells us that we are NOT living in a colorful age. Those on social media might beg to differ thanks to their over-dependence on Photoshop but lame jokes apart, racism is a grievous human shortcoming. Taking into account the way our stupidity appears now, our species may never rise above this narrow mindset. 

     Of course, there are moments when we get hope. For instance, when Usain Bolt stretches mankind's limits on the track and is loved by everyone, irrespective of their skin tone. No wonder he is the greatest racist of all time. Errrrr, i mean he wins race and all? OK, chuck it. On a serious note, how about Mario Balotelli hugging his foster Italian mother after winning the match? And there are many more examples—especially from the world of football because UEFA may have discarded the B&W patched footballs but Europeans are still mired in racism—where tears jerk and colors turn into celebration. Wish i was talking about Holi here but I'm not!

     As a Liverpool-loving adult, i think there are very few openly-racist players who play as good as Suárez! YNWA. As a cricket-loving kid, i was ignorant as well as racist (lethal combination) as i felt all black people lived in a faraway nation called West Indies. But to compensate this notion, i used to discriminate against red ants and adored black ones. My grandma played a small but significant role in developing this psyche. She told me that black ants are good omen. I guess that's why i keep seeing these tiny creatures today even when they are not around. 

      Being from a country which literally gave birth to racism, i don't know what is politically correct. Because a majority of my country(wo)men wish to be fair. What they don't acknowledge is the fact that despite all their lightening products, they'll still be black folks with brown skin and whiter-than-Anushka's armpit. This is also the reason why irony dies a painful death when Indians accuse others of racism. But let's get real for a minute. Humankind is inherently racist. A few words, said or unsaid, won't change that. 

     On a more serious note, black isn’t the color of hopelessness. Hopelessness is too hopeless to have a color of its own. And Wimbledon is white whereas the term 'blackmail' isn't. Fortuitously, unlike racism, racial jokes are always colorful. Having said that, it's difficult to figure out where exactly inclusion ends and segregation begins. While we are at it, shouldn't we ask ourselves whether Coldplay's Yellow was a special tribute to their Mongoloid fans? Ergo, everything is not fair in racism.