Darling? No! Please kill me!

This is one of my popular topics.

Do you really want to punish a person? People of all ages. No hassle, no physical efforts.
Only expenditure = ticket cost at a movie place near you, battling long lines of eager audience. Best of all, your hands don't get dirty. The torture is not obvious.

So when I want to torture my friend (and not enemy, for some reason) I would buy him a ticket to a Telugu movie. * - yes all disclaimers at the end of the post!

Latest one = Darling
Sounds like a romantic movie that could move many a heart. But then that's where an average movie director from this land proves to you that he can work as a spy/intelligence person/conman etc.
So is it a mystery movie? A bit. Is it a crime movie? A bit. Scary movie? A bit. How all these? Answers follow in my effort to lay down as in a scientific analysis. <--- (1)

It starts with a song picturized on the hero. (In movies from here there are no actors. Only heroes and superheroes.) The hero sings and dances with his bunch of local sidekicks to celebrate their graduation from the college. Nothing wrong with a bit of fantasy. Agreed!

At the end of the song, hero's junior confesses her feelings for him and proposes to him. (Errr! When did this start happening?) Perhaps she fell for his pink vest and amazing fashion sense. Ohhh and not to forget - his half shaven body hair! A fetish for tickly and prickly hair perhaps!

Hero rejects! Girl attempts suicide! Awwwwww! I couldn't stop my tears... No! Not for the mush or for the sorry state of the girl. Yawns so intense and resulting from extreme irritation/boredom, get tears out of my eyes!

Girl's father is then shown in his introduction scene as a man who hates traitors! (Who doesn't? And yet there were regular cliches. Regular killing of a traitor. Attempted patriotism when he stops the traitor jabbering excuses/justifications in English saying, "To express feelings you don't need English, Telugu is good enough!" I was moved... (Not by the patriotism, but by the numbness of my butt to change my posture.) I was touched... (By my non-Telugu speaking friend Nisha, poking to ask me to translate what he just said.)

At this point, (Hardly 5 min into the movie) I am so irritated that 3 of us walk out to buy something to eat. Looks like a great mafia, this! They produce horrible movies. So people get frustrated and go out to snack in the theatre's cafetaria. There, they have snacks with prices as much as monthly grocery bills would come up to. All in all, a great business model.

Next, the upset villain/father of that sick-tasted girl vows to kill the hero for upsetting his daughter. If I were the father, I'd have killed my daughter for attempting suicide for such a gay-dressed gu(a)y! Anyway she wanted to die, right?

Hero narrates a coo-chi-coo, mushy story of "How I met your daughter's competitor" with all the humor, emotions, drama, violence that he can conjure up in less than 1/1000th of the time that comedy series narrate their stories of how a guy met his child's mother! Enter a bombshell in Swiss backdrop.

Apparently the hero met her when on a music tour/competition. Yeah why should there be a surprise. It is as easy to pluck the strings of a guitar as it is to bite your nails these days! So, minus all the technical details, the story with all its twists and turns and vicissitudes is being narrated. Hero's group makes loss with the musical concert not materializing. So the organizer confiscates the passports of group, promising to return, upon making up for the loss.

The guys overhears the girl telling her story of previous night and then upon meeting her, chooses his first move as "I can read faces." (Yeah! For the nincompoop that you look, you'd better at least read faces if not good books to improve your common sense!) He narrates all that he overheard, convincing the girl that he is a pro at it. She always kept her face covered after that, to avoid being told what color her undies were today. (One should believe that there are such easy girls available for the taking! And I was thinking dogs are dumb and gullible!)

The guy shows no interest in practising. He spends all his time trying to woo the girl so much that the girl gives in to his pink t-shirts, tube-tops and tank-tops, leather stocking-like stuff that vamps wear on top of tracks, half shaved body hair and effeminating dance moves. (There is no room for those who wonder, what kind of friends are those that don't care about a non-participating member. You shouldd be too sick to be asking those questions, apparently.)

The heroine, with every scene adds to her ooommmphphph factor, but no matter what she did in the movie, the most womanly was the hero himself! He acted like a girl more than the over-acting girl herself. The over-acting heroine is eager to bend over, bend down, jump around etc for no reason. All this is to show, perhaps, that the girl is happy-go-lucky.(There is no normal acting girl in Telugu movies. Only flesh showing, dumb doll-like girls. Breathing Barbies, you could call them. Come to think of it, I always wondered what they meant by, "I want to do a role of substance. A meaty role! Yeah, this one passes the test because she does show her meat!)

The tick of approval is placed on the hero, by the heroine, when the hero fights 1000000000 people single handedly (as he did when the suicide-girl's father sends 99999999 goondas to kill the hero. He furtively fought every goonda that time. Now he openly bashed up every goonda - male/female!) Oh sure it does take a lot to fight local goondas in a foreign land where law is supposed to be strict. But then, it is a narrative...

When the hero walked in rage towards the goonda, one of 2 things happend - 1) There were sparks from his boot. (I knew it! His body was defective. Chromosomes mixed up. And so the electrons were revolting...) 2) There were shockwaves throwing villains off-balance, dislocating their bones. (But I would think the hero bashed up so many only because his cleavage was distastefully distracting and so the goondas couldn't concentrate on counter attack.)

At the end of the narrative, the heroine meets with an accident as she is running towards the hero to hug him. (She was dumb enough to run in the middle of the road and even more to not notice a car coming from behind. Yeah the fellow never honked. He never slowed. Car was quiet, as are faaren (foreign) cars.) The villain-father is reduced to sniffs and tears. He pardons the hero saying that it was "true love" and he understood its value. Given the way the heroine was portrayed, I'd hardly think it was anything more than true lust.

Cut to reality... It was true that the hero loved this heroine. But the narrative was make-believe. How? Well, it so happened that all the characters in the story were real-life inspired. The girl was a childhood sweetheart and a family friend. Hero's father & Heroine's father were diaper-day buddies. Swiss story was just added spice. Yeah, they had to show a faaren locashun! Hero, after fooling the villain-father with a make-believe story, gathers that his love was coming soon to India and so were the other family friends.

Now, everybody converges at the hero's uncle's farmhouse in a beautiful place in Andhra (Araku). There is the usual banter, leg-pulling, jokes which are common to childhood friends and their children. Hero -visualizing those days when all children would be naked/semi-naked and play together - would wish things never changed, literally!

Enter the hero's competitor. Hero was poor in academics! (Aaahhh! Here it was! I knew it right from the beginning looking at his crassy presence on screen and believe it is true of his real life too!) So his father's other friend's son becomes a favorite with heroine's father and even the heroine after some gimmicks like breaking ice-slab, showing 6-pack and beating the hero in a game of basketball. The heroine's younger brother (maybe 6 years of age)- given the age gap - I wonder if there are still people who do family planning the way ancient cavemen did or the way Indian Politicians plan India's growth - is an obstacle to hero's attempts to woo heroine.

Instead the brother aides the competitor, who, despite years of education in Australia, somehow managed to get the exact same number of local, nincompoop looking ass-faced friends with brown dyed hair (looking like muddy carpets) as the hero's group has. (Wow! This coincidence is rarer than that of the 9 planets lining up in the sky!)

So as soon as the competitor lands at the farmhouse, he challenges the hero to a game of basketball and almost every other game. Hero upon seeing that the heroine was cheering the competitor gives up an almost winning game. I would have thought, looking at his constipated expression, that he really quit to go to the loo! The game of rat-race begins between the 2 competitors.

Finally, as has to happen, the hero starts scoring more runs than the competitor. Esp after one incident when the hero bashes up yet another group of local goondas (which launches an attack on the 6-pack, ice-slab breaking competitor) which possibly couldn't bear to see the brightness from the boot-sparks and chest-hair sticking out (like cut creepers seeking sunshine) from his lavender tank tops.

The ungrateful competitor - showing no respect for the gay hero and his bravado - goes to the villain-father-of-the-suicide-girl-fame and tells him how the hero fooled him. Filled with anger, indignation and a determination to finish off the source of possible second-time attraction of his daughter, he takes an army of jeeps filled with animals (Yeah I am positive they were not men!) brandishing swords at the hero. (He is at this point walking away from the gathering in farmhouse, blissfully unaware of vehicles coming onto him. What's with people not realizing where they are walking these days anyway?) He is walking away upon the command of his daddy-dear (a la Lord Rama).

Now somehow in a dramatic unfolding of the plot and mysteries, everyone agrees that:
1) Heroine loves the hero and no one else. (Had to be.)
2) She'd die if betrothed to marry anyone else.
3) Heroine's father and grandfather patch up after a family feud of eons between them. All this because some gibberish led to the eye-opener of grand-pappy. He realized his folly and decides to: a) let his son back in the family b) re-adopt his son's friend (hero's father) c) Let her grand-daughter be happy and gay with a gay of her choice!

Heroine runs out to call back the hero. (Makes me wonder if no one gives a thought to ticket rescheduling/ cancellation and plan changes at the snap of fingers.) She sees that 100000000000000000 men are beating up her lust (Ohhh ummm Love). So what does she do? Here's her meaty-role part. She jumps in between the villain and the hero, pleading him to kill her 1st and then the hero (if indeed the villain must kill the hero). And once again, the tear glands swell up at the mere words and he drops all arms. I would have thought it was bad-breath from the heroine that rendered him helpless.

And the hero ends saying "Don't worry daaaarrrrlingggg! He won't kill us!" with a sheepish grin showing turmeric yellow teeth! (Oh everything about the hero had to be colorful, right?)

Few highlights in the movie: Every one of the side characters had a ridiculous side to him/her (No not humorous! Ridiculous!). There was plenty of attempt to jokes and there were dumb audiences (mainly overgrown women) sitting behind me laughing uncontrollably. Oh maybe it was a cockroach that was crawling inside their clothes.

Heroine's other meaty part was when she delivered a stunning (oh so cliched) speech on India and its values as opposed to Western world and how she hated Switzerland. Oh and guess what immediately followed that patriotic meaty scene? It was a run-around-trees song set in Swiss Alps!!! (The movie makers apparently don't understand "irony" and "direction")

Everyone else, other than the hero, was reduced to mere hand-clapping, over-acting, slap-stick humored buffoons. Hero's normal acting was very intense. I really cried inside my heart everytime he laughed/cracked a 'joke' and laughed everytime he portrayed serious emotions. (So what? They were intense, and so were my reactions.)

The only thing missing in the movie was a rape scene! That would have so made a complete masala movie. I gathered later, that the girls loved the gay acts of the hero so much that they wanted him to take his top off! I, taking courage from the opposite sex, confessed that I had similar hopes from the heroine!

References: (1) - So it really had a bit of everything you see! Mystery being, what the heck is the story about and where the f*** could I find the movie makers to pack them up and send them into orbit?

On a scale of 5 I'd give this movie -500 (negative five hundred<-- just to remove doubt).
I resent,
every cent,
that I spent,
on the movie. Really, I wish I had spent so much on charity instead!

* - I have no disclaimers as a matter of fact. I believe that the one who cannot criticize himself can't improve/evolve. We all know evolution is natural and essential. A clan that can't look at its flaws and appreciate better things is unfit!
I have only one hope from Telugu movie industry. That hope bears the name of Shekar Kammula! I'd recommend non-Telugu folks to not take movies like this as an example! We had good movie skills until even early 1990s. Now with Shekar Kammula, I have hope again!
I also don't think comparing with other language movie standards is a way out because I never compared here. And I don't care if others do horribly. It is my language movies that should lead by example. That is what I want.

Salute to you, Mr Banker!

I just saw a 12 min video of your ideas. I admire you more than any big corporate man. Surely you are 10 levels above a fellow who brought franchising in India's favorite sport. Certainly I value you more than some lone tennis star, who after making it to some Grand Slams, decided it was not for her, and instead chose to marry some fellow and settle outside the country.
I value you more than any politician (sadly we don't have leaders in our nation these days). You would be insulted if comparisons were even made to entertainers who are called 'actors' and showered upon with awards. More truly, it is just a distribution of awards, as one does of sweets on Independence Day.
Time and again, when hope seems to be lost in despair, some story like yours comes up. At this rate, Mr Banker, I have a lot to do by the time I retire and beyond.
Kudos! Hats Off! Take a Bow! You put people like me with "Global Education and Exposure" to shame, yet inspire them to take up constructive activities, first at home, then everywhere. Your words restore the faith that there are Angels on Earth after Mother Teresa left our company.
Mr Banker, my countrymen, esp those from the countryside have tremendous potential and burning ambition. Continue to fuel them, till someone like yours truly and his friends get there too!

Watch this video!
Banking on change

PS: I am a firm believer that everyone has a place in this world. So I have nothing against above mentioned people. It is just that I go out of my way to salute these true heroes who get lost in those that I feel are of no significance.

Strength of a woman!

December 24th 2009. If you look at the date, it is one day before Christmas.

That day, however, I realized that I could hardly fathom the depth of a woman's heart! For all the training that my prospective wife should be proud of my mother for, I just didn't understand it.

So here, I land at Bengaluru International Airport, not without the frustration and fuss of the bribe seeking officials. I loathed every moment of going back to India. My friends who came to pick me up, were annoyed that I tried to run away from the airport premises, not even acknowledging their presence. My justification was that I wanted to escape the irritating government officials.

My friends - Viraj, Vinod and Shreyoshee - relish my mom's cooking. Who Doesn't? I'll pay a 1000$ to anyone who finds a flaw in my mom's cooking. But then, that's not the deal here. The deal is in how this woman casts a spell on others while maintaining an impression of possessing supernatural powers.

Here is her Modus Operandi:
1 - Smile.
2 - Make people comfortable.
3 - Cook amazing delicacies.
4 - Be optimistic.
5 - Help everyone.

I, someone who can speak in 5 or more languages, am trying to learn the secret behind having friends of any background, despite not knowing more than 1 language... Acquaintances who'd take an extra step to help her, just to see her smile stay on her face... I am not exaggerating when I say that 0 to 100, people of all ages speak to her. They feel comfortable talking to her. They want more of her time. So I analyzed her. That is so typically me... Observe, Analyze, think...

She is not a Psychiatry major. She is no Engineer. She doesn't have the B.Com certificate to prove that she is 'educated'! Does any of it matter? I observed - No!

Her secret behind endearing herself to everyone is a secret indeed! Here, I can challenge any psychiatrist an amount of 1000$ to gain an insight into her psyche.

Now a mere mortal like me goes back home after 18 months of living away from home. I was greeted with the same affection that my friends were greeted. Clearly I was offended. Being a single child, I was used to being the center of attention. So a "Hello!", upon my arrival, from my mom was offending to me... I expected more.

The whole day, my friends would not take my hint - a hint saying, "Guys, maybe now you should leave me alone at home. Maybe I could do with some sleep (Jet lag)!" I am proud to have such friends too! I'd give up a lot of things to have friends like these!

Finally towards evening, they decide to leave for their respective homes! Relieved, I decide to inspect my home for the various changes after my departure to Chicago. Nothing seemed to change as much as my mother's tolerance towards my absence. I was supposed to be her only child. So how was I to understand her "Hello!" when I appeared at the door?

I saw that the lunch served was not one of my favorites - Potato curry! I was dismayed. I was confident that my mother would cook my favorites right from day one.

With all the pent up feelings, mixed with home sickness, I was peeved! I went in to her room. She happened to enter the room at the same time. As was customary, I grabbed her face gently, hugged her, tapped her and asked, slightly annoyed, "Enti Amma! Nenu oste neeku aanandamuga ledaa?" (Aren't you happy that I have come?)

No sooner did I hug her, than I heard her sob! And she didn't stop until at least 5 min. I was stunned! Any lady crying over my shoulder was supposed to be comforted. That was how my mother raised me. So I looked around, stunned! Something wrong? I was supposed to be homesick! And my mother was a strong person - to an extent that everybody pours their sorrows into her! Seeing her sob relentlessly put me to shame. Indeed I didn't know to read the mind of a woman! This woman - a personification of strength, love, kindness, inspiration and amiability taught me yet again that '...still waters run deep.' Here I thought, I was homesick. But there, my mother suffered from son-stroke!

That is when I realized that the depth of a woman's heart is not fathomable. Woman's Day or not... Mother's Day or not... Here is my tribute to the Woman! If ever my wife loved me for the respect I have for women, she should thank her mother-in-law! Mom, here is another tribute to you! I Love You!