...AND I AM ENGAGED !!!

There is really no other way to sum up what happened and a severe lack of creativity on my part means I can't really think of any other title to put for this post. I could call it the Blogger's block but then if anyone is really reading this blog,(Read: close friends who are forced by me to do so)they would know that I am not much of a blogger. 5 or so posts over 4 years could be a world record of sorts for lack of activity on any blogging site but of late, I have revived this much neglected activity of mine due to being egged on by a special someone who surprisingly enough thinks that I have some talent when it comes to writing nonsense.

Anyway, back to the title and as clear as I hope it is, let me still clarify that I am engaged to a girl(Who shall remain anonymous till she gives me a go ahead to use her name in these posts) and not engaged in work or engaged on the phone or any other statement which could use the word "engaged" as most of my wise friends would point out !

I think I have gone off topic again so I shall try to stick to it from this point onwards.

So ,I am engaged and it was basically "arranged" by my folks. In the age old debate regarding Arranged Marriage vs Love Marriage, I have almost always supported the latter with a fervor that would indicate that I have a lot happening on that front. That has, unfortunately for me, been largely a misconception. Barring the one-off cases, I have been about as active amorously with the fairer sex as Baba Ramdev is and even he, I have heard, has Rakhi Sawant pining for him due to his flat abs ! My argument has often been that only someone socially incapable of finding a girl on his own would resort to an arranged marriage. So, has that opinion changed now?

Umm...No

I still think it is the last resort. But....in the past few months in which I have now come up close and personal with this archaic practice, I feel getting someone you can click with in the entire horoscope hullabaloo is possible. Over the years, the process itself has matured enough to keep up with the times though I still know people who have met the girl/guy once and then have gone on to get married to that person a couple of weeks later .Now ,that is a scary proposition at many levels. The possibility that either of the two has an alter ego that howls during a full moon night and claims that chilled blood is their favourite beverage is minimal but is still enough to give me nightmares for one! Blame it on watching crappy horror movies !! In my case there is a good 8 month gap between having seen the girl and when I finally get married to her and that is comforting because I have known relationships that have lasted less than that!! This period should help both of us to get to know each other well enough to not have a situation on the wedding day where she tries to introduce me to her friend and goes 'Err..whats your name again?'.

Back to my whole process though. The initial pleasantries through phone calls between the parents had been exchanged, the horoscopes had been matched and the moment of truth of the girl and guy finally meeting had arrived. The thirty minutes or so it took me to figure out whether I should go formal as if it were a job interview or casual with my limited choice of tees or jeans seemed like an eternity and by the time the platoon from my place(My mom,dad and me) had finally reached her place,we were unsurprisingly though fashionably late. I had held my breath throughout the journey to keep my tummy in and had tried practicing my best smile(not that it had ever helped me before) in front of the rear view mirror of my car while adjusting it. The latter of course got a strong reaction from my paranoid dad who told me to look at the road and concentrate on driving !

We rang the bell. The door opened,I gasped, my tummy sagged and my smile vanished at the sight in front of us.

Job interviews with a panel of 2-3 interviewers are normally pretty scary but here I was greeted by her mom,dad,uncle,aunt,cousin, cousin's wife,her nephew, nephew's mom, her sister and 2 cats who had got in somehow. I did assume that the cats would not subject me to a round of questioning so it was safe to be least worried about them. I waited for a barrage of questions but surprisingly, I got none. The standard questions regarding the route I took to reach their place followed with some general suggestions on what would be a better route being provided by all and sundry. However, the overwhelming feeling of being a fish in an aquarium stayed and I felt that every movement or statement on my part would be dissected,studied and analyzed later in the day. In the midst of this uncomfortable situation, I tried looking around to locate the one person this visit was for and finally managed to locate her.And...

I was floored ! Suddenly, the entire visit seemed worthwhile and the necessity to pull in the tummy dawned on me again. I tried to stop myself from gawking at her by trying to look elsewhere but it seemed a pretty difficult thing to do .Thankfully,her folks, having been thoroughly bored by my responses probably decided it was best to banish me to another room to talk with her and I was more than happy to oblige.

Not having much to say, I became Captain Obvious for a moment and began the conversation with "Well...This is awkward" to which she nodded . This was the cue to bring in random topics of interest and that continued for the remainder of the meeting.The conversation itself was as awkward as would be expected in such cases with long pauses during which we looked at her nephew trying to play NFS on the desktop in the room while keeping a ear open to hear what was being said between us. However, it established a few things
1. She was pretty and smart
2. She did not show any psychotic tendencies
3. I was bowled over by her
4. She was pretty...oh, I said that already !

With the above points in place, it was quite easy for me to say "Yeah..she is nice" when dad asked me the one word question "So?". For some unfathomable reason, she found my buffoonery endearing and apparently gave a similar response at her place. This final frontier having been conquered, it was only a matter of time before we got engaged !

The weekends became and continue to be times I look forward to as the only time I get to meet her on "dates". From coming to know that it takes her ages to shop for anything to figuring out that she has a superstitious side to her when it comes to keeping her close ones happy, every date seems to open up facets of her personality that help me know her better.It feels nice to think that we could do this for 6 months or so and then somehow term ours a love marriage if she isn't bugged by my antics then ! I guess this could be a strong case for an arranged love marriage if we can survive this 8 month itch !!

Raja Sen - You Sir, are a moron !

Its been a while since I have posted anything on this completely dormant blog of mine and after a couple of years of having forgotten about its existence...I am back !!

I must admit though that the reason for this triumphant return has been this sudden urge to spew venom somewhere about a particular movie reviewer(Name mentioned in the title) who has really got my goat ! If you are a regular reader of Rediff.com, you probably would be familiar with his articles. They are really not that hard to miss and in that sense, credit must be given to him for grabbing your eyeballs with his sensational statements followed by an almost deliberately biased review that has to be different from the rest of the world's opinion about anything.

In what is an addition to his unenviable list of trashy reviews, he has now proceeded to give Zindagi na milegi Dobara a 1 and half star rating. I have never understood the parameters he judges a movie by but that kind of rating is what I would traditionally reserve for movies that are absolute drivel and having watched the movie myself yesterday, it is far from that. Admittedly, it is not the greatest there is and the movie is a tad too long but it is much, much better than the regular Bollywood fare. This is not the first time though that he has come up with reviews that have been downright ridiculous for movies that deserved better. Given below is a list of reviews that he has given for some movies that I(and many others based on their collections) liked.

3 Idiots - 2 stars - "Three Idiots, Two Stars, One Missed Opportunity"

Rajneeti - 1 and a half stars - " The screenplay is weak, manipulative and every possible kind of lazy"

Rock on(Music Review) - 1 and a half stars - "Rock Yawn !!"

Other than these, he has proceeded with statements such as X-Men: First Class is better than The Dark Knight and that Om Shanti Om is among the best movies made by women directors in India ! The irritating bit other than having to read these atrocious statements is that it almost looks like he is one of the majority shareholders at Rediff because we are subjected to another article where he gives his views on the Formula one race of the weekend ! All of these articles have headlines with 'Raja Sen reviews so-and-so' or 'Ask Raja Sen about Formula One' or 'Raja Sen predicts the Oscars' as if the guy is a celebrity whose opinions on anything should be taken as the final word !! It is laughable that anyone would even want to know about the race of the weekend from an idiot who probably sits at home with his DVD collection and plays with his remote control cars due to the severe lack of friends that he no doubt must suffer from for being so opinionated !

Back to the movie though that really got me fired up. I did read the reviews before going for it with a certain special someone( The 1 and a half one almost ruined it but then I figured it is Raja Sen so the opposite must hold true). ZNMD is a good movie that deserves 3 stars at least. It could have been great had it been trimmed a bit. It is all about the kind of expectations you go in with. I went in expecting to see 3 guys on a road trip in a beautiful country with lots of conversational jokes here and there and thats exactly what I got. It is no DCH and in many ways, it doesn't even aspire to be one. The road trip itself is shot beautifully and though the characters in this story are filthy rich , I identified with the essence of such a journey since I have been on a few with my buddies. Their luck with girls is unreal but then that is where you realize it is basically a commercial movie and not a regular video of 3 guys on a road trip. The latter would be a great idea but would also need guys you can identify with as I am sure not many people can really identify with looking like Hrithik at any level unless they are in the movies themselves !

The performances are good all around. Hrithik is excellent as the stuck-up corporate guy who learns to enjoy life through the journey. He does overdo the busy,rich guy bit initially but gradually does better in the role. Farhan is very good as the prankster of the group and Abhay Deol is great as the balancing factor amongst the three. The camaraderie they share is believable especially considering that in the context of the story,they are supposed to have met after a long time. Both Katrina and Kalki are believable in their roles as well and this is probably the first time that I have felt that the former actually got a role that fits her perfectly. The movie looks great and the songs are perfectly placed. I am assuming that Spain is now going to be on the Places-to-visit for most people now !

On the negative side, the movie is long as mentioned before. Farhan Akhtar's poems that keep making their appearance in the movie are unnecessary and made no sense to me. The movie also lacks a certain something that would hold it together as it depends solely on the performances to get across the line.

Well, there goes my first ever review. I would say that considering everything it is still a one time watch and since I haven't really seen a movie where the characters have a pact like this, I would say it is an original script and that really should be reason enough to watch movies like this especially if you have lost faith in most of the copycat Bollywood movies these days like I have.

Raja Sen mentions in his review that the movie is trying too hard to be cool. I frankly think the same about him. He needs to stop his pretense and almost child-like quality of wanting to be the center of attraction by being different with his comments. Stop being a party pooper, Raja Sen because at the end of the day you are basically pooping in a party and that sure can't be a good thing even if it is to get everyones attention?