How deep the rabbit hole goes......

.... said the joker to the thief

2011-08-15T12:18:00.000-07:00

"I have seen the Fathers sin,
I have seen the Modis win,
I have seen the Maulvis lie,
I have seen the Gandhis die,
I have seen the Pandits steal,
I have seen the Gurus kill.

I have seen the gods bleed,
I have seen the humans deed.
I have seen the face of death,
Like a newborn's lips, it's red.

I have seen the Salieris high,
I have seen the Galileos fall.
I have seen the hand on flame*,
I have seen the hand done paint.

I have seen the faceless eyes,
I have seen the tears dry.
I have seen the empty shells,
I have seen the massive kills.

I have seen the chaos rhyme,
I have seen the twitch of time,
I have seen the dusts rise,
I have seen the high chairs squeal.

I have seen the history's leaf,
I have seen the future creep.
There is too much confusion here",
-Said the Joker to the thief.

==================================================

The last two lines are inspired from this beautiful song featured in Watchmen and Battlestar Gallactica:

"All Along The Watchtower" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka_sHy9cVH0

*(Van Gogh Reference) "In April 1881, Van Gogh moved to the Etten countryside with his parents where he continued drawing, often using neighbors as subjects. Through the summer he spent much time walking and talking with his recently widowed cousin, Kee Vos-Stricker. She was the daughter of his mother's older sister and Johannes Stricker, who had shown warmth towards the artist.^[30] Kee was seven years older than Van Gogh and had an eight-year-old son. He proposed marriage, but she refused with the words, "No, never, never" (niet, nooit, nimmer).^[31]Late that November, he wrote a strongly worded letter to his uncle Stricker,^[32] and then hurried to Amsterdam where he again spoke with Stricker on several occasions.^[33] Kee refused to see him and her parents wrote, "Your persistence is disgusting".^[34] In desperation, he held his left hand in the flame of a lamp, with the words "Let me see her for as long as I can keep my hand in the flame"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh#Etten.2C_Drenthe_and_The_Hague

Gulaal- Finally some serious stuff

2009-03-13T13:52:00.000-07:00

Bhai log, I feel delighted to state my feelings here about watching Gulaal.
Obviously, I loved the movie and rate it at a very respectable position in my list.(And believe me I have a very long and eclectic list)
But, it's not just about the joy of watching a great movie.
I feel great to see Bollywood (or read just Anurag Kashyap and some other talented folks) brushing shoulders with Hollywood movies in terms of quality and original content.
I feel relieved to see the existence of at least some people who care to take movies as a serious and uncompromising art in a place where salesman-Sh**r*kh, monotonous-AB and moron-R*j*ikant rule the industry. I can see the likes of Karan Johars and Chopras wetting their pants eveb if they think of making a movie of this caliber.
[Sorry, if I hurt somebody's feelings here, but I can not care less to be politically correct. So face the music :D ]

The movie is very dark, very deep, very subtle dialogues and every character has depth, is well carved and has a purpose to serve. This movie makes Omkara look like a lullaby.

Even the songs (to my surprise) were very appropriate and contextual.
Background score was brilliant and scary. Piyush Mishra is great in both acting and composing the music for the movie.
Very creative and meaningful stuff.
No wonder no distributor in India was willing to distribute this movie and it was just hanging there for 1 year.
But only after the commercial success of Dev.D people took chance to put some money in it and it got released.

Although, I am sure it will bomb at the B.O. :)

I personally congratulate Anurag Kashyap and wish he reads this as he deserves every bit of accolade to be the odd-one,to be the good-one in a moronic-industry like this.

The Question!

2009-01-02T22:46:00.001-08:00

“It's the question that drives us, Neo. It's the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did” –Trinity (Matrix Trilogy)

Then Neo retorts back with his question- “What is the Matrix?!!” Trinity might have been expecting this question inevitably. Similarly many people confront this question in jobs/exams interviews: “What do you think is the human-kind’s greatest achievement till date”? Most people would answer “Landing of man on moon”. This answer is so common that even the interviewer would raise an eyebrow if the interviewee gives any other answer. Other common answers would be computers, nuclear fusion, telecommunication, cloning, stem cell research (not now but may be in not-so-distant-future) etc etc.

But this question in its true sense has intense philosophical overtones. And following is my take on it- Given the exponential developments in the field of technology and science and human’s core urge to make life more convenient (I am philosophizing laziness here :P) these milestones were inevitable. I think most people would agree with that. My answer to the question, as an individual, would be- the greatest achievement of human kind is Fall of Berlin Wall (fyi:I just finished watching The Lives of the Others). May be I don’t know the political nuances involved in it and may be its political and economic impact might not be that huge in the material world, but I, as a layman, love the gesture it emanates. I love the direction towards which it points.

Now, I have grown up seeing countries exploding into many countries (USSR); the clamors of partition (India-Pak-Bangladesh); and evil machinations for the hunt of more land (China-Tibet-India). Hence, falling of Berlin Wall and the Socialist East Germany re-uniting with the Federal West Germany stands out as a contrast on the face of the entire human history. Just try to imagine India Pak reuniting together or China giving back the land it acquired from India. It might be a pipe-dream. It might sound like a child getting his ultimate gift from Santa Claus. But that is how, I believe, the Germans would have felt when the wall fell.

-Junaid

The Painter and his Masterpiece

2008-02-28T13:13:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, there lived a painter.
He was a helpless drunkard.
But he had the hands of Picasso and Van Gogh
He never went to an art school or remained in the company of fellow painters.
He used to hum his own tune.
He used to say to himself and to the world that "one day I will paint a masterpiece that the world would watch in awe, Mesmerized!".
One chilly morning his body was found near the staircase of his down-trodden apartment.
DEAD!!
And the painter was me.

Pointless Blabbering

2008-02-24T12:16:00.001-08:00

I am frustrated!

Frustrated with the world and its nearsightedness and its superficial view on the matters.
I am frustrated with the news about the IPL. So, some young lads got rich at a strike of the hammer.... what's the big deal.
America destroys the dead-satelite approaching the earth...what's the big deal...everybody's gonna die anyway.
Obama, Hillary- what the heck! Both of them would screw the world equally well.

So, some astrophysicist discovered some new star with some peculiar nature..there are 200 billions of them....there's no end to it.
A pop-up pops-up which is THE only thing it is capable of doing, another worthless entity!Winamp says its 5.5 version is released. Who cares, my old winamp can play Comfortably_Numb.mp3 equally great.

I wonder at the pointlessness and worthlessness of things happening around me and the maddening noise they are creating!

I want to scream chaos. I want to become the devil's brother.
I want to paint Taj Mahal blue. I want to stand on top of the Eiffel tower and take a piss making a big circle. I want to slap George Bush and whisper in Osama's ear- "Dude, what the Fuck!"

I want to become random, I want to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time... want to become that Heisenberg's particle.

Disclaimer: The thoughts above are just a piece of composition and not necessarily depict my state of mind :P