FROM FILMFARE AWARDS TO A POT OF ASHES...

The recently held filmfare awards,hosted by shah rukh khan and saif ali khan with their characteristic spit-fire sarcasm created quite a stir and polarised the tens of thousands of viewers who watched it on television...some people loved it and professed admiration for the duo for treading into forbidden territory with their dark humour...some people hated it and felt that the sanctity of the filmfare awards had been tarnished..after all,its the oldest award in bollywood and a much sought after one at that!

An elderly person i'm close to complained bitterly that shah rukh khan and saif ali had crossed all limits of decency and gone too far with their brand of slapstick/sarcastic humour...especially the giving away of awards for the worst dressed actress and forcing the recepient(an unsuspecting vidya balan!)to accept the award and say a few words!..also when the sponsor of the awards(an elderly business tycoon) came to give away an award and expressed happiness that he was being asked to give the award to a beautiful lady who was his favourite as well(deepika padukone),shah rukh khan quipped,tongue-in-cheek,"she'd be happier if you made her a share-holder in your company!"..the sponsor was left looking red-faced!

I am on the side of the people who loved the function...i thoroughly enjoyed it and laughed a lot..one should only have a problem with people who poke fun at others but are unwilling to take a joke on themselves sportingly...thats unfair and reeks of double standards...but shah rukh and saif ali were as harsh on themslves as they were on others..in fact,they did a mini skit on their readiness to dance at wedding parties,birthday parties and any other function,at the drop of a hat,provided they are shown the big bucks!....i definitely think they played fair..

A lot of people though found it all in bad taste...i say to them,why can't we let go of our inflated egos and hear things about ourselves which we know are true but don't want said aloud,for a night?
lets not be full of ourselves all the time...poke fun at others and get poked too,for a change!..

Ultimately,we are all going to end up in a pot of ashes to be dispersed over a river or in a coffin under layers and layers of mud..thats the biggest potshot of all that God takes on man....no escape!...like someone so rightly said..don't take life too seriously,you are not going to get out of it alive!

I DON'T WANT TO BE AN ENLIGHTENED SOUL..!

one often hears people saying that facing the problems and vicissitudes of life with equanimity is the hallmark of an enlightened person...such a simple thing to say but try following it and what does one find?...that its as impossible a task as trying to find the end of a bottomless pit!...

the simple fact is that its not humanly possible to face problems with a neutral attitude...we are made in such a way that we laugh when we are happy,we cry when we are sad,we get angry when upset and so on...to ask that one should remain like a robot,come what may, is like asking a child to sit still in a toy-shop!
i believe our emotions are beyond the realm of control.. emotions cannot be controlled like we swtich on or switch off a light.....

is it possible to control one's laughter in a completely hilarious situation...doesn't one burst out laughing spontaneously?...is it possible to stop the flow of tears in the face of a tragic situation..don't the tears just flow?..these are natural in-built reactions...thats how we are made..its a manufacturing defect(i'd say manufacturing boon though!)

isn't it much better to feel the intensity of pain with as much pain as it gives?...and feel the intensity of happiness in all its pure radiance?...anyday better a robot who is neutral and moved neither by pain nor by sorrow and looks ahead with blank,dazed eyes!

i'd rather feel the bright warmth of sunshine,
the wetness of rain,
the monotony of a bad day,
the ecstatitc high of a good day,
the cheer of a good laugh
and the pain of a sarcastic barbed-wire remark, than be a highly spiritual and enlightened robotic soul.

ITS A MAN'S WORLD AFTER ALL!

The image of Governor Spitzer of New York walking into the press conference to admit he had done regrettable things and wronged his family stood out in my mind as a sad picture..

Nope,I don't feel one bit sad for Spitzer who projected himself as a Messiah of Morality and turned out to be an arrogant man who thought he could get away with pulling the wool over people's eyes for the rest of his life.My heart went out to the solemn- looking,shocked,numbed lady standing beside him-his wife-watching her husband fall from the top of the Eiffel Tower of Morality in to the slush down below...

I can't for the life of me understand why she was made to stand beside Spitzer,looking on with God knows what kind of turmoil going on within her...leads one to the think what if the situation were reversed?....if a lady with high-standing in society had courted gigolos or had an illicit liasion,would her husband have looked on, watching numbly ,as his wife confesses on national televison and her skeletons come tumbling out of the closet....NO WAY!!! IMPOSSIBLE!!!...It seems absurd to even conjure up such an image in one's mind.

Yup,there is no question of a man standing by his fallen wife..the lady would have to fend for herself...but a woman better stand by her fallen husband,forgive him and be the all-forgiving mother..then she will be hailed the "ideal"woman...else she runs the risk of being labelled a spiteful,vengeful demon because ,after all, to err is human,to forgive divine!

Why is it so?...feminists have been asking the question for eons now in vain..it would be ridiculous to even attempt to answer such a complicated question....lets just say there are different standards for men and women especially in the realm of morality.

Life is unfair,women..get used to it...safe to end by quoting Lessing(author of the feminist bible,the golden notebook)...Life is about getting used to things that are intolerable...amen!

TIME IS THE BEST DEALER OF PRINCIPLES

An interesting incident which amused me...i happened to see the movie "Blood Diamond"about a year ago....for those of you who haven't seen it,as the name suggests,it is a brutally violent description of the savage behaviour that goes on in Africa for diamonds...man kills man,gangs roam around brandishing guns and kill as they please...the gangs force men to work for them to find diamonds...and all this for the sophisticated diamond companies who buy cheap diamonds from Africa to makes exquisite jewellery for the upper class elite around the world...

well,a lady friend of mine too saw the movie and was deeply disturbed...she said she was off diamonds after seeing the senseless mad scramble the movie portrays...she also mentioned a particularly relevant dialogue mouthed by Leonardo di Caprio in the film,which is actually the essence of what the film-maker is trying to say...Caprio says the mad scramble and killings would not be going on if not for the massive demand for diamonds..he tells the petite heroine who is sickened by his greed for diamonds that if she cares so much she should stop buying diamonds....

my friend was deeply impressed by this line and said that she has sworn off diamonds....i was touched by her resolve because she is someone who can afford diamonds,yet she had made this decision..i was impressed by her sensitivity and social conscience(however tiny it may seem on the scale measuring social conscience!)...my making a resolve was meaningless,for the simple reason that i cannot afford diamonds but nevertheless i had kind of made the same resolve!

well, a week back this friend of mine enthusiastically asked me to go upto her flat,she wanted to show me something....i went wondering what it was...it turned out to be a shiny,crystal-clear,pure,radiant DIAMOND!!!!!!!...worth about a lakh and a half in indian rupees...she was beaming with the unadulterated,pure joy of a child!...no trace of the social conscience at all!...i praised her shiny new stone truthfully....was definitely worth praising...left her glowing with owner's pride and came home....

set me thinking and made me realise that time is the best healer...what affects a person with the intensity of an electric shock today can be shrugged off a year later like one would a pesky fly!...Time can smash your principles and make it shapeless like an automobile badly damaged in an accident...but let it be said,there are many people who stand by their principles too...for them even if their principles are put in a washing machine and spun round and round,their principles come out intact and cleaner!...

enough of philosophy now,i was left wondering if i would have the strength to resist that beautiful diamond if it were given to me..i narrated the incdent to my husband and he laughed and said "don't worry,you won't ever be faced with the predicament of making that choice,i'll never be able to afford a diamond big enough to tempt you away from your principles"...... how one can't fight with this kind of logic..?!!!so its still remains an open-ended question...hahaha...