Akshar `Uvach`

Scene 1

This time we became victim of typical pune ‘direction and notice’ board. After searching for a pool parlor G.A. we started our journey to search this pool parlour.

After a lot of walk we could not figure out where exactly G.A. was located so like our previous n number of efforts to find a pool table we gave up on this as well.  As we were walking back we figured out a board which said Road to Camera Emporium.

A turn and another turn, thankfully the owner had put boards on every corner and crossroads. The way led us to slums where we could see typical scene on women fighting for tap water. We though we wont be interested in any camera emporium located in such an area. We returned cursing the owner of the camera emporium.

While returning I noticed a small piece of paper attached to the big iron board “We have moved to xyz address”. Worst this piece of paper was put on the last board one is supposed to see after following so many boards.

Scene 2

Me waiting in the line for paying the bill in Pune Central Mall (the biggest in Pune) after taking full advantage of their 50% discount on the branded items. A guy dressed in clean ironed formal came to me.

Hello Sir, I am xyz from Pune Central. After my experience in all the Malls I knew what he is gonna say. Are you salaried or business man sir? then he would praise the fact that I am earning and make me feel good about it.  Then he shows you a pamphlet with list of malls (which u have never seen or heard) and says that you will get 10% discount everywhere. The value of those membership cards is mere Rs 200 to Rs 1000.

He is explaining me and I am listening to wait for my patience to end, studying his face, I can see a hope in his eyes that I might buy his card. I interrupt to tell him “I dont think this is useful to me as I dont belong to this place”. If I say Goa he might say we do have xyz shop in goa so I say “I am from Australia”. He is dismeyed his hopes are destroyed and he moves over.

When I say Australia a few women and girls in the line (who were passive listeners to this marketing drama) turn their neck from 90-180 degrees.

Here are some things you should remember when in Pune.

1. Always cross the road on Zebra Crossing : Not because it’s safe but you are likely to get insurance money if you come under a PMT bus or more likely a Rick.

2.  Fight with Rick for no reason: It can save you anywhere from Rs 2 to Rs 10. Thats called taking advantage of man’s guily feeling.

3. Do not argue with a bus conductor : Unless you are prepared for his insults.

4. Carry Change always: This will minimise your loss due to statements like (Chutta nahi hai sab)

5. Heavy Rains are not really heavy: Heavy rains means you just have to carry an umbrella by goan standards its just minor rain.

Note: Suresh Kalmadi is a Chief of Indian Olympic federatio, The whole pune city is full of boards congratulating his exceptional leadership that gave India a gold medal. Many of these boards do not even have mentioned Abhinav Bindra forget the photo.

Alok went to restroom and checked his attire in the mirror. His manager’s manager (say Mr. X)  had called him in his cabin. His managers manager was known to be a high profile guy in the company. He had rose to his position in a very little time. For some unknown reason everyone feared him.

Alok had no need to worry. He was not summoned for any serious reason. It was  Mr X’s birthday and he had invited Alok on internal IM system to have a cake. Mr. X always shared such moments with his subordinates. Seldom he would even have a casual chat and would sometimes hit where it hurts the most.

It seems once a fresher told him that his hobby was gardening. Mr. X took him to the company garden asked the name (scientific name mind you) of the plants there. That fresher was clueless and was sweating like anything. This was not the end of the story. When that freshers failed to even tell the common names of the plants, Mr. X told him common names as well as scientific names of those plants.

Alok entered Mr. X’s cabin Mr. X was busy on a call. What attracted Alok’s attention was the huge book shelf in his cabin with many books.  Alok waited so he could wish Mr. X take a piece of cake and run away. A book that caught Alok’s attention was “How to be the Smartest Guy in the Room”.

Mr. X gestured  Alok to have a sit and himself went out of the cabin with his mobile. Alok feeling restless and loosing his calm got up and slowly picked that book from the shelve. He knew that if he gets caught it wouldnt be a nice scene.

He opened the book and he realised that the book really had the Mantra to be the smartest guy in the Room. 

It had a gun hidden inside it.

I was reading a book called above average,  the dedication page had this line.

मुजको मालूम था उसका अगला ठिकाना कहाँ होगा
परिंदा आसमान चुने में जब नाकाम हो जाए |

I have been tagged by wavesnsands

 8 favourtie movies

1.  Saving Private Ryan
2. Forest Gump
3. A beautiful Mind
4. Pather Panchali
5. Hazaron Khwahishein Aisi
6. Shawshank Redemption
7. Million Dollar Baby
8. Eternal Sunshine of a spotless mind

8 Books I read recently

1. The great Indian Novel by Shahi Tharoor
2. Indian Controversies by Arun Shourie
3. Above Average
4. Our Parliamentary System by Arun Shourie
5. Games Indian Play
6. The Kite Runner
7. Inheritance of loss
8. my country My life by L. K. Advani

8 places I visited in last 8 months

1. Kerala
2. Shirdi
3. Pune
4. Mumbai
5. Khandala
6. Lonavala
7. Sai River View Resort - Ankola
8. Doodhsaagar

8 Places I will visit before I die

1. Ladhaakh - Kashmeer
2. Manas Sarovar
3. MeenaxiTemple
4. New York Times Square
5. Paris
6. Hong-Cong food street (to eat spicy Cockroaches and Fried Ants)
7. Kobe- Japan
8. Princeton Campus U.S.A.

8 things I want to do

1. Write a book
2. Eat some weird food stuff in china
3. Dine with a Geisha in Japan
4. Be on a Sinking Ship
5. Act in a movie
6. Direct a movie
7. Be part of a War
8. Help a complete stranger achieve his dreams

I had strange experiences in Pune. I knew that Pune is a city of Pensioner Buddha people.

It is also a city of fake intellectuals and cunning, thick skinned politicians. Let me not count corrupt police as a Pune specialty because its everywhere the same in Maharashtra.  

An yes how can I forget the New Construction Sena and other old new Senas, brigades, sanghs, samitis etc? They all are proud of being Marathi, Punekar, etc but the Shanivarvada to Parvati the Symbols of Pune’s culture lie in ruins.The nameplates of their own house are written in bad Marathi.

I had gone to my friend’s place where we had a bekaar Pensioner uncle on the ground floor. Every time we friends came out the flat he would rush out and stare like and idiot at us. The look in his eyes was same as the look in Kantaben’s eyes in Kal Ho Na Ho.

We never eve teased his daughter or wife. We never made noise in the flat still this uncle looked worried.

While traveling by Rickshaw the driver asked us our Caste something that we friend has never pondered upon. When we said we don’t really differentiate he told us we should learn to. If he was in Goa may be we would have kicked him in teeth.

Marriage invitation cards were the most entertaining. It had a list of all the political leaders of the town who knew the families. Those leaders who were not in power or position would have designations like (Social worker) mentioned in front of their names. I heard even the order of the names mattered a lot.  People who were rivals should be put on the same level in the same row. The person in power should come in first column. Despite of this goof ups do take place and some names get omitted. Hence as a workaround a supplement is printed only with names and stapled with the invitation.

This is the Puneri Culture (aka Hypocrisy)

What about the Hang out places? Hm… there are many. One of them is Z bridge. I think this bridge was designed by some politician. Its shape is tht of letter Z and a Car like sonata is likely to get stuck in the turn. You see many people on the bridge most of the time couples. The strangest thing about these couples is most of them are boy-boy couples.

Huh no discussion about Pune can go complete without talking about various Plates that we get to see. Here is one for you.

The term nostalgia describes a longing for the past, often in idealized form says the Knoledge Hub Wikipedia. But for different people this word means different things. What exactly is nostalgia?

Is it something that happens to you when

you remember the sticker book you had created when you were in school?

you remember  fight caught with the worst kid in class?

you hear a song you had first heard 20 (or may be 15) years ago ?

you smell the same food you had tasted first on a rainy evening?

you reach the same place where you had kissed you girlfriend for the first time 10 years back?

you come across your old photos on a college picnic?

you miss the warmth of your mother love?

you realize you have lost the watch gifted by your father  on your 15th birthday?

I dont have an answer but I think nostalgia is a revelation that something that happened in past with you was so good and important that you miss it in your life though you failed to realize its importance at that moment of time.

Incidents happen, we think they were trivial but we miss the point that they have the potential to bring fond memories one day.

Needing something is sometimes like a parachute. You need them only once and if they are not there for you at that time, you never need them again. – Dilbert

The nation and media is debating if UPA will survive or not. They call it a Trust Vote. Trust? Isn’t it ironical to use that word with our politicians and system?

The trust vote is called to prove that the PM and his cabinet has faith of majority of MPs who claim to represent the people of this nation. Majority MPs => Majority people.

Forget about majority. Do we really trust our government? For last 60 years the system that we have developed, is it something we can put our trust into? How many of us run to Government Hospitals if we can afford a good private one? How many of us send our children to government schools?

We fear our on politicians, police and judicial system. The system that was meant to protect us and especially the poor class has turned into a system that won’t change and give encouragement to oppression and crime.

A system that encourages reservations under the name of equal opportunity, protects fundamentalists under the name of minority, allows Bangladeshi to settle in our land for personal gains.

A system that has failed miserable in having good educational infrastructure for our bright minds, to give us chaos free roads, planned cities, water safety is a far away while we struggle to provide water even in cities.

Look at our PM. He is defending himself against a trust vote. But what does he stands for? Congress is not even considering him as PM candidate for next elections, Rahul will be their candidate. The party itself doesn’t trust him.

Our country has reached to a point where the system and politicians have lost trust of the most important part of democracy “The people”.

After this trust vote many will become richer by a few crores. There will be a hell lot of ‘what if’ analysis. The common man will get back to work on his scooter next morning. And the people in pune will have to face the load shading as usual.

There is absolutely no need for me to waste more bandwidth and disk space writing about Satyajit Ray’s master piece Pather Panchali or better to say the Apu Trilogy.  Like some one has said “Classic Literature is something that everyone adores but hardly any one reads” Same can be said about Art movies as well.

Pather Panchali However Apu Trilogy was not an Art Film. It was a box office hit even though it was the first movie made by satyajit and the whole crew. Pather Panchali was a well known novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay. It tells story of a poor Brahmin family in West Bengal. Harihar is a poor soul who earns very little by workign as a priest. He dreams of making big fortune by writing scholarly plays and poetry. The whole family lives in a dream that they will one day earn enough to feed all.The family contains Harihar, his wife  Sarbjaya, their very old aunt Indi (Played by Chunnidevi) , Apu and his elder sister Durga. Sarbjaya doesnt really go well with Indi  and they keep on fighting. Durga has some kind of affection for Indi. Durga and Apu love to hear the sound of train and they even once run away from the house to see the train. Train is the connecting factor between all three movies.Harirar fed up of his job in temple decides to move away from the village to a city. However he leaves and there is very little communication from him. This puts the family in more difficult situation. Sarbjaya becomes more lonely and dettached because of his absence while her responsibilities increase. While playing in the Bushes Durga and Apu discover that Indi is dead. On a rainy day Durga dances in rain for a long time and catches fever. She dies becuase of absence of any medical help.

When Harihar returns with some money and shows Sarbajaya what all he has brought, she stands as cold and stiff as stone and falls on his feet. He realises that his absence has made them loose more than what he has earnt.

The movie is about hope and human struggle for survival. Its about indian family values and the emotional complexities of  different relationships between the family. Each character is complete on its own and the center point is Apu. If the family has anything to rejoice about than it is because of the young Apu who is loved by everyone. Apu also is the hope of the family for a better future. When Durga dies Harihar decides to leave the village. Apu finds a beaded necklace stolen by durga (she denies stealing it though, he throws it in a pond. Movie ends when the whole family relocates in a Ox-Cart.

In the Second part Aporajito, Apu’s father Harihar dies. Sarabjaya takes a job as a maidservent. They go back to their ancestral village. Apu insists that he will go to school. He studies diligently and gets a scholarship to go to Kolkata. Sarbjaya doesnt really want him to and the theme of the movie get unfolded. Its about a mother who loves her child and a child blooming into a young man willing to see the outer world. Sarbajaya understands that for Apu’s life it is important that he should study further and bids bye bye to her son with a smile. Apu leaves for Kolkata and she bursts into tears. Apu’s departure leaves her all alone and she detaches herself from the world.

She expects that her son will visit her often. Apu works in a printing press as a part time job. He visits his mother very rarey and feels out of place in that small village. He finds his mother very outdated. It is not somthing that a son turning bad, buts it natural for anyone who spends his life is a city. Satyajit ray shows this change so beautifully that we too realise that all of us have gone through the face where we see that generation gap.Sarbajaya falls ill but doesnt convey her son. When finally he learns about her illness he returns but finds that she is already dead. Locals ask Apu to stay back and work as a priest but he refuses. Symbolically the director has shown that the young generation is not interested in following the olders generations so called nobel way of life. Apu returns to Kolkatta to settle in there.The third and last gem in the series is Apur Sansar meaning Apu’s world.  Apu is a unemployed graduate. He happens to visit a village for a his friend Pallu’s friends wedding. It turns out that the groom has serious mental disorder. Bride’s mother cancles the wedding despite of father’s protest. Villagers request Apu to accept the bride and get married to her. If she cant marry on that muhurat she would remain unmarried to the rest of her life. (Bride is played by Sharmila Tagor). Apu marries her and returns to Kolkata. Satyajit Ray shows the blooming love between the young couple and their intimacy even though he did not have the freedom to show any sort of physical contact.The love between the young couple is short lived as Sharmila dies giving birth to their first son Kajal. Apu hold Kajal responsible for her death and denounces him. He becomes a wanderer and goes all over india. Kajal, on other hand lives with his maternal grandparents and turn violent day by day. Pallu, Apu’s friend goes on searching for Apu and finally finds him in a mining quary. He requests Apu to take his fatherly responsibility.Apu returns to his in laws. Kajal being watching his father for the first time refuses to accept him as a father. However after a lot of convincing he accepts him as a friend and both of them leave for kolkata to start a life afresh.

WALL.E has already set hollywood box office on fire and it is arriving in India on 4th of August. What I have to say is that please do not miss this movie. Its just so lovable.

Buy N Large is a company that is providing every possible service to people. The company has grown so large that it eventually becomes world government. However uncontrolled consumerism leaves so much trash on earth that the earth becomes unsuitable for living. BNL has a solution for that also. They build a huge Space Cruise called Axiom and all the humans are sent on a space voyage.

Till than BNL prepares a army of Robots called WALL.E who are supposed to clean up earth and make it suitable for living. But something goes wrong, all WALL.Es get spoiled except one.

The smartness of the screenplay is that this background of the story which might sound complicated is not told initially. It get unfolded as the story progresses. WALL.E is the only robot left on earth who has been working tirelessly for 700 years. His job is just to crush the garbage and convert them into blocks and pile those blocks to build huge towers.

WALL.E has a pet cockroach who serves as the sidekick. WALL.E over years has developed some kind of sentiments. He has his own hideout where he preserves things. This things include a Rubic cube, spoons, a bulb, a television set and a movie VHS. This movie is something he watches everyday and learns things like love. His wish is to hold some one’s hand. This whole thing is so cute.

And just when you find WALL.E cute , you see the next CUTE thing in the movie. Its EVE (Extra Terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) a robot designed to search vegetation on planets.

WALL.E has a plant sapling preserved. That’s his secret.  He falls in love with EVE at the first sight. But EVE like all other women is hype. She blows up things whenever she gets excited. (Just like other women). The Chemistry between WALL.E and EVE is awesome. EVE’s swift movement goes well with WALL.E slow and mechanical movements. She is compact yet strong and WALL.E is ugly and weak. WALL.E takes her to his small room where he takes shelter from storms. It is also a place where he has kept his treasures, he shows her the movie tape and teaches her to dance, and that is when she too probably starts liking him.

EVE is a state of art machine designed with attention to beauty and elegance. She can fly. WALL.E on other hand a ordinary dirty robot who is rusting. WALL.E is damn scared of EVE bu he also tries hard to catch her hand. When she finds the plan with WALL.E she just puts is in her stomach and hibernates. WALL.E does everything to save her.

The hidden message here is that how uncontrolled consumerism can affect our environment.  People on AXIOM are happy for 700 years. They use machines for everything and that has made them ultra obbess. They use machines even to move. To talk they use vidoe conferencing even if the person is just next to them.

EVE is recovered by Axiom a space craft and WALL.E too manages to get into the space craft. He goes unnoticed to AXIOM as well.

After 700 years the captains of ships has changed. The new captain has not idea what earth is all about. Because of the plan sapling he decides to learn what earth is like and he gets surprised to know the life on earth. He decides to go back to earth but the autopilot refuses.

There is a mutiny. WALL.E on other hand releases many malfunctioning robots who go on making chaos. EVE and WALL.E have to fight out the robots and AXIOM’s autopilot to save the tree sapling. Captain too discovers that he is capable of walking and switches off the autopilot.

What happens next is worth watching.

WALL.E gives you a very pleasant experience through out and  keeps a smile on your face that lasts even after the movie is over. What is more important is that it also makes you think about a few issues. Environment is not the theme of the movie but it touches that aspect.

Somewhere in the race of life we are loosing our emotions, small gestures that denote love are important for us this is shown by metaphoric use of WALL.Es craving for holding someones hand.

The captain when listens music for the first time and when watches  movie on his computer is thrilled about earth and the possible life on earth. His autopilot tells him that Survival is not possible on earth.  The captain’s reply is the bottomline of the movie.

“I dont want to survive, I want to live. 

WALL.E is a movie not to be missed, its a movie that the whole family should go for and enjoy.

The movie has been made by Disny and Pixar. The people who gave us toy story, finding Nemo and the Incredibles.

I will give 4/5 for WALL.E