PMSMT

Gin Dobre. Everyones been ranting about "Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara "(PMSMT for my typing ease and common sense will tell you MSMT- Mile Sur Mera Tumhara). Yeah, I know its not as good as the original, but seriously did we expect it to. The original was easily an epic hit , but I think people are picking on it too much. I know there are a lot of blogs going crazy over ripping the new version apart. I read a few of them, but they do not seem to be really telling you why they fail and seem to be a usual rant.

Lets take

http://krishashok.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/mile-sur-mera-tomorrow-fail/

The guy is a popular blogger, but he is shifting into the phase where funny references and pointless banter seem to be the focus rather than a good review. He does not bother with a good review, rather he sticks to just pick apart the new version. Being a critic, thats the easiest thing to do, actually thats what some people are specialists at( Yes, that means you Shankar).

I could go on and on about why this new version is going to fail, but I ll do something different here. I ll tell you why this is bad compared to the previous version.

Firstly, MSMT was launched on Doordarshan. Cable TV was not launched until 1992(if my memory serves me correctly). So people had to make do watching Doordarshan and this song came on every 2 hours. So the more people heard it , the more they liked it. People didnt have the luxury of turning away from a 5 minute song in those days. So people had to sit through it. I dont mean to take credit away from the quality of the original, but playing something repeatedly does make you like it.

Secondly, the background visuals, A fcking amazing. 1.0 clearly trumps 2.0 on this. The locations are excellent. Its natural,plush and green and completely non artificial. Its a colorful delight.The new version starts off with ARR playing the continuum (his new favorite instrument)with buildings in the background and Amitabh B standing near the Taj hotels of the Mumbai attacks. I understand the sentiments behind it, but the Taj hotels has become a symbol of sadness and gloom. So you are basically making the watcher feel depressed at the beginning of the video, BADDDDD start.

Next, MSMT was 5 mins 48 seconds , PMSMT is fucking 16 minutes 26 seconds. I dont know which fucknut was directing this(I wikied it and saw its Kailesh Surendranath, the guy who did the first one as well). The reason for this is the money that has gone into the production of this song. MSMT was such a huge hit, that producers wanted a longer better video with more people involved.Anyone with half a brain would know that no one`s going to listen to 16 minute song. Market research and common sense was clearly lacking.

One point which everyone seems to be making is "where is the passion?". The end of Mile Sur Mera Tumhara is amazing. People running over, wearing the Indian Tricolor and forming the Indian flag. It totally works. After the agonizingly long 16 minutes, they just show the flag fluttering in the wind. Theres absolutely no human connection here. The kids wear tri color uniforms and the sportsmen in the end wear the tricolors as well, but clearly does not compare to connection made at the end of the previous version.

And here it is the , the biggest fail.: 4 sportsmen ,50 people from the film industry in the video(check stats here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mile_sur_mera_tumhara). My god, this is ultimately projected to be a saucy music video.Again, influence of money. When you have so much money, its easy to get everyone you to make your video appealing. The producers are basically appealing to every actor fan base there is. In the original version, many famous actors and actresses were filmed together and given one screen. In this hes given individual shots to all actors. So being lenient to the Director, maybe the fail for this wasnt totally his fault. Its probably how it is Indian Cinema these days. Many people keep saying how Sachin and Tatas or the Ambanis werent a part of it. My guess is either they didnt have the time to film or probably cost way too much. The focus of this video definitely seems to be for the actor fan bases.

Okay, at this point I am going to give the video some credit. One thing they did focus on although after a sleep inducing 14 minutes, was shots of the army. As an Indian, I am very proud of our nations army.I think this was something the first video missed. Also, there was some screen for our country`s unsung sportsmen. People like Abhinav Bindra, Vijendar Singh,Sushil Kumar and some lady( I dont know her name, google it).Instead of flooding the screen with our usual brand ambassadors like Dravid, Sachin and Ganguly, they have given time for some unknown players.

One thing to note in India is, remakes in India are never going to be a hit, no matter how good they really are. The best example of this is DON. For a remake, this is as good as its going to get. People in India are`nt just open to the idea of remakes. They are always going to be compared to the previous version. In a way this is a good thing, as Hollywood seems to be killing creativity with movie sequels, story book adaptations and reboots(i.e. Killing the story all together and writing a whole new version of it, e.g. Batman, after the debacle of Batman and Robin, they "rebooted" it with "Batman begins".)

Ultimately, I know I have written a very negative article, but I still like the idea of remaking a classic.The idea is to connect with the audience of this generation. Most of the actors in the previous video are way past their prime.Slowly and steadily like a Rehmann song people will warm up to this new version. Its got all your favourite stars and people will forgive the director for making it too filmish. The old version had no OOMPH factor to it. This will be the ultimate bro video thanks to Aishwarya B, Priyanka and Deepika Padukone (the reason why she might have actually been in this video is because her father, Prakash was in the original version, so touch of irony from the director.. well that and she s downright hot).

Note: I dont want to write too much about what the actors are doing because clearly I am out of space, time and am not educationally qualified to say what should have been done.

Girls , Girls ,Girls and Men !!

Women, god`s most complex creation. The story of women goes like this, Adam felt bored and asked god for company. But since god was busy creating donkeys and snakes, he sent a half finished product- Eve. I guess even God can make mistakes. Adams lifes was thereafter spent doing 2 things- Eve and eating apples. It must have been damn easy to understand Eve, seeing that there s just one of them around. 20,000 years later and a billion fucks later, the earth was populated with roughly 3 billion women. It has become harder to categorize women seeing that the sample space of women has rapidly jumped.

I guess in my 22 years 2 months and 20 days of existence I would have come in close contact in atleast a thousand women in relationships. God`s unfinished product`s work is to making itself difficult to comprehend them giving off their mysteriousness aura trying charm the balls out of men. Everyone ,fear not, my nimble mind shall try its best to classify them.Without much foreplay I just jump right into the categories.

Category 1:Girls who dont know what they want.

Beware o wise man. These are the most dangerous of them all. They jump from guy to guy making each guy feel like they are guardians of a treasure. These women project themselves as hurt confused,weak souls all the while telling you their deepest secret and 20 mins later regretting telling you about it. At the end of the relationship you will feel like a fool for having been in such a relationship. These women are for those men who feel the need to protect someone and are overly possessive. Women find sollace in such men, claiming to feel their warmth in their hug and their presence. In all fairness, the people around such people are often disgusted at the girls stupidity and the guys short sightedness. Finally when the guy can take no more of the whinning and crying , it leads to a bitter break up and the eventual resentment of such a relationship. The girl moves on to another guy and hence continues the vicious circle. Depending on the nature of the previous relationship the guy in the next relationship suffers to that level.

Category 2: Girls who are good friends only.

These are the nicest people you will have around. They are kind ,caring and nice. However there s just one rule they wont break. It might be the stupidest thing ( "I dont believe I am pretty enough to fall in love") or the most important thing ("my family is the most important thing") . They will claim to be those who are close to all guys but closest to none. Such girls are ideal friends.They will listen to you while you rant about your boss or the weird chineese guy who keeps putting egg in your vegetable fried rice dispite telling him not to.Certain guys being the imbeciles they are will fall for such girls and will endlessly try upon wooing them to no effect. That one rule will dominate and the guys will not make any headway in their relationship. Do not try too hard guys. That one rule will destroy you.

Category 3: Girls who are looking for the one.

Aaaah. These are often the girls who usually end up with their first love or after a few horrible dates meet one decent man and end up falling in love with him. Such girls are generally nice to other guys. They are decently career oriented and they are kind and caring as category 2 girls. But these girls are also gossip mongrels. They are always up-to-date on whos going out with whom ! These girls are often ideal girls who will give you sound advice and tell you to do what is right. These girls like to be led and a supporting shoulder to lie on. These girls are often patient and understanding but sometimes tend to deflect pressure and anger upon their most loved ones.To all single guys who have such a couple as your close friends, use their help to meet other hot girls.

Category 4:Girls who like just having fun.

This category of girls I like best. They are the courageous, outlandish,wild and out and out girls. These girls are often single and prefer to remain single. A result of their insistence to remain single can often be traced to either a harrowing first relationship or some crappy sister`s friend`s love failure story which would have shocked the bejesus out of them. These girls are like the butterflies who prefer to remain in their cocoons. Although they spread their wings out in public , it is far from the eyes of those admirers. Seeking such people out is difficult and succumbing to their charm is easy. Staying away and forgetting them seems difficult. These are girls living life on the edge, fearless to none and ever ready to break the rules. I like these girls because its always nice to have a challenge.

The easiest way to be happy with the girl of your dreams is to understand them and what category they are.I hope that everyone can see the positives and negatives of each category (although category 1 girls do seem too damn sad).I would call this post an idiom for a girls catalog ( Please,I am not into that business ! so lets refrain from posting horrible comments and rather look up the meaning for idiom first !) .

Define me

Yeah, its got to be about me. Sangeet once called me a narcissist. I think he just used that word because he must have learnt in it that day, but still it did mean something to me. It didnt make me go " WHat me ?! " . I just thought " cool , atleast someone can define me". Lately, I have been looking to find my place in this world. So the reason I am blogging is to publish my ideas and hopefully understand whether several people feel this way too.

I am 21 now, less than a fortnight to my birthday. I dont want to turn 22. It just means I past that age of stupidity where everything wrong can be written off as fault due to my age. I know I have to get serious after I turn 22. Its just the way things work I guess. Pretty soon all this fun would have dissappeared and it would have morphed so suddenly into a life of responsibilities. Then after that it will be all family and stuff. Some of my friends are in so called " love" and they pretty much have decided what they want to be doing for the rest of their lives .

WOW, REST OF THEIR LIVES. My biggest worry right now is that I have to cook tomorrow and I hate going to the market to buy groceries.Hel,I have a class at 8.30 in the morning and I have a couple of projects due and a couple of meetings tomorrow and my biggest worry is that I have to cook tomorrow ?? How immature is that. I am still happy being young at heart. Many say thats a gift to have. Lately, I have been trying to understand the path that lies before me and how its going to take me to where I want to end up.

I wonder if everyone feels this way. If everyone needs to understand their place in the world. I have an idea of what my life should be. I have always tried to place myself in this world. What am I supposed to be, engineer, manager , researcher, a bum ? How is my life supposed to be ? Should I want more in life or should I learn to accept what I get?

The where I am  supposed to be is the worst question, Chennai, India, Bangalore, USA, rest of the world?The WHERE would partly answer the WHAT and the HOW. It is the answer to this question which would define me the most. Till now I was so sure this was the one question I had the answer to, but now this is question which confuses me the most.

This whole process of me attempting to define myself and understanding my role in this world has been a puzzle.I dont believe in people when tell me" enjoy life as it comes". Sounds too hippie to me. I cannot be immature in thinking that life is a stroll. We live in an age where the one who plans and proceeds succeeds .If we have no idea of where our finish is, how do we even know which route to take. 

I believe that the next 6 months will be understanding the path I am about to take.Huge changes will occur either volutarily or involuntarily.These six months I believe will help me understand not just what I want to be, what I am now too. The future is now. There s something I have always wanted to say from Jerry Maguire: " If your hearts empty, your mind doesnt matter."

Times changes roll with it

Sitting on the edge of my bed at 2.41 a.m EST, I kind of feel like Jerry Maguire, you know the first scene in which he starts writing in the middle of the night. But I dont think I have anything as inspiring and jaw dropping as he wrote. But I too have a story to tell. 

As I listen to Mohit Chauhan singing " TUM SE HI " from Jab We Met( a movie which has various stories to my life) it reminds me of a simpler time. The movie came out around december 07 and it was an instant hit in India. It was during a time when life was easy, when there were no issues of money, marks , time schedules, assignments, projects, reports etc. 8 months later everything has changed. I still wish I could go back to that life. I loved that life. I dont think I could find anyone in my batch who could say " College life sucks ". Waking up at 12pm, going to jhoops( our local dhaba) for lunch and a movie made my day.There was no pressure on me at all. I was no college stud but I definitely felt like one. 

 Mohit Chauhan said it all in this song . I was in love with the time this song came out more than the song itself. I still listen to this song as it reminds of that college life. 

Sangeet with his jumping around and his paunch [:D] , Tippu with his constant mind changing, PPk with his whining , Alok with his liverpool football club, G with the most unclean room in the whole of India , Nithin with his constant hunt for a free computer to steal a game of age of empires, Shankar with his constant phone chattering( you cud never tell if he was talking on to you or Pooja ). Life was made back then. Then there was the constant irritating Kaveri and Manoj. We were always in constant competition for the position of " most useless person in college". Fridays and Saturdays were better( not that there was much difference). 

Now I have so many constraints and variables thrown around at me, funding, assignments, grades, temporary work, living expenses. Its not like this life is difficult and I hate it, well actually I do like it, but then thats just a part of life, I guess you just learn to adapt to newer environments in life. 

I do feel different now, going back to that old life would be like wearing and old dress- It wouldnt fit me anymore. I think in my heart and body I am still really really young. I keep jumping around all the time, never take things too seriously, I dont worry too much and for some stupid reason I am always confident ( No matter how many times I fail ).he he. I am probably the only person who would after 4 supples have the courage to return to engineering and education , and that too at a huge expense and what not.

I wish I could have all friends back in this life, it would be so much easier then. I dont think I have trusted any 12 people more than anyone else ever.Somethings should never be forgotten. Those bhaat sessions, those Cricket matches, those farewells where people cried ( well I tried and failed at that too), that last day of ragging, the parties with the legendary junior mallus-unbeatable. 

In a way our lives are very similar to Jerry Maguires. A man who has everything loses it all, but he holds on to something, and holds onto to it harder when he is in trouble. I too hope for a happier simpler life, but there are situations we need to go through for those. Thats how this world works. If it was that simple everyone would be doing it. If at the end of each turmoil in life if you could hold your head up and say " I learnt something and next time I can do this better " that is success which is unmatchable.

LOSER

I am not a loser. I always looked at that word with utter disgust. Oxford calls a loser-A person who has given up being presented on every challenge. I never gave up on anything. I tried my hand at everything and failed. Marraige, Work, Relationships, Gambling, everything , I had tried it all but then it was never my time. My wife told me before she left me " I hope that someday you will learn from your mistakes. When I look at your life now.... Loser !". I never learnt from my mistakes. There was no regret when she left. I had always seen it coming. All the thoughts in my mind then were " YOU ARE NOT A LOSER ".

Life was never easy. People keep telling me that " Dude , Everyone has problems." or " You are just going through a bad spell ". Damn. I have waited for the last 5 years for the bad spell to go away. But life has not gotten any easier.

I was so tired of seeing the same people everyday. You wake up and see your wife there. You have breakfast and you see your children there. On the way to work , you say " Good Morning " to the same people everyday. I worked in a cubicle for the last 10 years. Everytime I went to work , I would see the exact same things. Pencils neatly placed in the stand, papers neatly arranged just as I left them yesterday. Work was a routine. There was no difference today as from the first day I joined the company. Everytime I stood up in my cubicle and looked around I saw people engrossed in the dull drafts in front of their round spectacled faces. Even their lunch conversation was DULL. The usual stuff " Did you who the boss is sleeping with?" , "did u watch the show at 9.20 on "...well you get the picture. There was never what people called " JOB SATISFACTION ".

During college was when life was good. But that seems like ages ago. I was one of those people you always wanted to be, smart handsome and popular. Me and four other guys were the popular people of the class.We did everything our way. I was what people would call the " Gang Leader ". Everywhere we went we ruled. Picking up girls at bars was as easy as mom picking up groceries. But after college my friends got into their own lifestyle and we gradually lost touch with each other. Every now and then people pop up but then its hard to make conversation with them now.

My marraige was one of the saddest stories ever written till date. It was a marraige decided by our parents. I had no word in the matter. The girl and date were completely decided by my parents. Initially things were good. She was an interesting girl, I had just got a new job , a new life it seemed looked before my eyes. We had twins within 2 years of marraige. I thought I could learn to enjoy this new life.But then not everything was as colourful as it initially seemed. I always longed for that life of college, where I was the king. Now I am just a pawn moved by all the factors in my life.

Fights between me and my wife started off slowly. Initially it was about the food, then it became about my constant bitching about my life. I was started to hate it. ROUTINE .!!. I felt there was nothing to look forward to in life. I think it suits certain people but not me. Slowly there was this gap that came between us. We stopped talking slowly. Even regular visits to the psychiatrist did no good. One dinner she came up to me and said " I am leaving you now. I see there is no point in my continuously suffering in this marraige. You hate your life. Only losers hate their own life."

I am not a loser. I never thought I was. But just when she said it then, i thought to myself "ARE U ??". I woke up the next morning and things didnt seem any different at all. She had taken the kids and packed her bags and left the previous night. On the bed side table was a paper that read " DIVORCE NOTICE ". With no feeling I got dressed and left to office.

I sat in my cubicle and thought about how riddiculous my life was. Gradually I started visiting the local gambler. My "FRIEND " took me there saying it would make me forget about my wife.Although I wasnt thinking about her just the words she said kept ringing in my head. In my effort to forget it I started playing a game of rummy. I was good at card games. A Natural, A Pro. Winning a few games slowly took my mind of my life. I started making it a regular habit of going there. Some days you win some , some days you lose some. Losing hurt. I started betting more and more money and then before I knew it , I had lost everything. My money, my car, my house and slowly my life.

People at work soon heard of my gambling obsession and fired me instantly. It was a shameful thing being shouted upon and being watched by all the sad people around me. Funnily I think to myself, in their sad life that day must have been the most entertaining and made great lunch time conversation at the office cafeteria.

My parents could no longer look upon me as a suitable son. My dad dismissed me after my wife left me. My mom though who was a little more compassionate then had slowly given up faith in me after the obsession began.Soon her health deteriorated and my dad started taking care of my mother being there all the time

So with all this going on in my life and nothing to live for I am a loser. Its going to be just a few hours before they come and seize my house from me. So I decided to write this letter to remember me by. I will be dead before anyone even opens the doors and sees my body hanging down from the ceiling. I have realised one thing though at the end of this letter. I am a LOSER.
Strangely ,at the end even the things you hate say dont seem so bad. I could never learn to adjust to the people around me. I kept bitching about how boring my life was. I thought I was to special to leave and ordinary life. I was wrong. My stupidity blinded me from reality. There is nothing wrong with a normal life.

I have had several regrets in this life, things I might have said or done.Even if i could i would not return back to the life where there were nothing special. Routine has killed me. Not even the noose around my neck. I was dead even before i woke up this morning. This letter is just a reminder of my existance. People would soon refer to me as their son, her ex husband, their late father.I also request of you, dont use my life as any example. I am just another one of the regular suiciders frustrated with life and the things that have happened to me. We are LOSERS. We gave up on life just because we saw a little sadness. We dissolved ourselves furthermore in this sadness and started becoming a social reject. I dont know how much difference my not being here will make but if there was any inconvinience caused by me " I am Sorry ".