London Dreams, Mumbai weeps.

London Dreams is like many other B-wood movies – about a dream, a fantasy, and a ride that doesn't always have to have its seat bolted to any kind of reality, or in this case, believability.

If three Indians are brought together by fate, even after their lives having taken completely different paths to that point, and the singular higher purpose that binds them is a rock-star performance at an enormously popular stadium like Wembley, we need something more than a concrete structure of a stadium to believe this story – they probably need to sing in English and play music that most of the people coming there would be able to appreciate.

It is not for nothing that Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy are busy making their living in Mumbai, composing music for Hindi movies. If their music was good enough to rock the world at Wembley, they would have been doing that, instead of Mannu, Arjun and Priya.

Granted that neither of these roles are played by Reese Witherspoon or Joaquin Phoenix who would train till they could render perfect performances for a "Walk The Line", granted that London Dreams has come out of the usual pedigree Mumbai cacophony and is meant for the substantially lowered expectations of typical Hindi language cinema audiences that have been mercilessly dumbed down by B-wood. But, given the story – chasing a dream, could one be blamed for expecting more?

If a film depends on its musical numbers to stand out, it needs to have outstanding music. London Dreams doesn't. If it depends on its storyline to be noticed, it has to have a little more than two friends uniting after many years, a little better character motivation than one of them bringing the other to London, and if their friendship was the big mover, then the token girlfriend should go through an experience of her own that is a lot larger than changing hands. None of this is part of this movie called London Dreams which has had a great deal of work done in the promos and the publicity, but very little on the script, as usual.

Scene for scene, you would expect two experienced actors like Ajay Devgan and Salman Khan to easily deliver the undemanding, oversimplified love to anger range of emotions that B-wood cinema invariably spits out mercilessly on its audiences and the director ensures they don't enter any dangerous territories of challenging performances. Everybody is adequately over the top exactly as you could expect from a B movie from B-wood.

Asin's role as always, could have been performed by any girl in B-wood, and she's adequately available to the uninspiring demands this script places on her. Priya is at the centre of a great friendship gone sour, but when there is such a human endeavour in progress like chasing that elusive dream of a great live performance before a big human gathering, how can we burden her with the extra gravity of the personal?

So, the men are allowed to bring the story to its (chrono)logical end, which is rather soothing after the long drawn out indifference to the music and the story. As for the earth shattering moment that brings Arjun down to earth, we all saw it coming, for that is what happens to good guys who went down the wrong path in Hindi movies. They never give us the pleasure of telling us that they had a great time on the dark side, do they? Because they have a reputation to protect – of being ready for the next mediocre film to do the same expected things all over again.

Yet another vague, purposeless, weak kneed, over-hyped, glossed over, noisily promoted offering from B-wood, with nothing special to offer. But then, heck, you can get to see Wembley, and some of us who aren't lucky enough to be sleeping with ear plugs in air conditioned comfort after paying the money to get in, we might even catch glimpses of Paris, Amsterdam and Rome. Want a good movie from B-wood? Dream on.

PS: Sure this was written before the release of the film, as you can tell by the time of this post, but did it make any difference, really? If you've seen the film, please tell me why I should too!

Caught in catch phrases.

"Whose WAR is it anyway?" Oh, great! I suppose not more than three
generations of English speaking Indians have seen "Whose Life Is It
Anyway?" so we must all really salivate over how good this sounds.

"Children of a lesser God", or victims of terrorism? Ditto here, who
remembers an Oscar nominated film with the exact same name?!

Chattisgarh, "War On" Naxals! After the War On Drugs, and the War on
Terror, both of which were flop shows, now we have a War on Naxals?
India is a great place to unleash Wars upon, starting from War on
Stray Dogs, to War on Corruption, War on Filth, War on Floods, War on
Drought, and hopefully we can fight the War of all Wars with a War on
Stupidity followed by a War on Wars?

How easily the pigs of Indian television use the word WAR! It is a
word of immense import, one that evokes a state where all reason has
failed, all our abilities as negotiators have been exhausted, and a
state where our conflict resolution skills have been overthrown by
bloodthirst - physical conflict guaranteed to bring about death and
destruction. Getting caught in catch phrases is one thing, but utter
disrespect for the power of words will have grave consequences as
well. (pun intended).

A "Total Recall" of Amitabh Bachchan movies on his 67th birthday!
Phew, that should make him really proud, considering he hates the word
"Bollywood". This one is really cheap, too, and must have come from
the unfailingly low Mumbai uncreative mindset that works for the media
industry there or in New Delhi. The word "recall" has really negative
connotations of faulty merchandise, and if Amitabh Bachchan is so
faulty, we really have to cry for this nation's heroes.

If these catch phrases have not worn us down with their uncreative
repetitions in the last forty eight hours, we finally caught up with
the oldest crap term of all time, "Nuclear Capable"! This one's been
away for some time, to be honest, but back with a bang today!
"Privhti-2 successfully fired today". We all know it is a missile.
Does it make it any more remarkable because it is nuclear capable? A
nuclear weapon is simply another payload for the missile to carry.
This is the stupidest way to get people all concerned, while it really
shouldn't mean anything.

Whether we put fireworks or a bomb on it, the missile is just the
vehicle carrying it. Even a donkey is "nuclear capable", and it
really is time our dumb news channels stopped hammering us with this
infantilish term.

A missile's job is merely to hit its target accurately and to evade
counter measures. That's it. If Prithvi-2 reached its target, it's a
success. Any missile that can carry 100 kgs or more, for sanity's
sake, is nuclear capable. Your kid's school bus is nuclear capable,
as is a bullock cart.

Now why the fuck do we need to "launch" new cars? Whenever cars get
launched, they get destroyed, don't they? Haven't we seen enough
movies to know this? The BMW Z4 was "launched" today after the
successful "launch" of the Jaguar and the Land Rover range by Tata
vehicles? Do we see any of these pieces of shit in orbit around us?
At sixty lakhs for a Z4 you wouldn't have to launch the damn thing -
You would have to beg, plead, market, schmooze, and lick the boots of
the richest Indians to get a sale. The guys who know where to throw
sixty lakhs aren't going to be dying to own something just because it
got launched into their faces from a hoarding.

It isn't just a matter of creativity, when it reeks incompetence to
the nth degree. If Formula One driver David Coulthardt drove an F1
car on a new bridge in the USA at 260km/hr, and had invited a speeding
ticket and a loss of Rs. 20 lakhs to the "organizers" of the event, we
wouldn't see just the car standing still and Coulthardt getting into
his seat fifty times. We would actually see the bloody car speeding
across. For some reason, even though it happened in Mumbai, and with
this whole story that got so much "coverage", we never saw the car
going across the bridge!

There is a bunch of uncreative, giddy Indians out there, putting out
messages like we are the USA. Many of these fools directly copy not
just the catch phrases from very American precedents, but also
stupidly and crudely emulate their presentation style, whether it
makes sense to Indians or not. Are these the same motherfuckers and
whores that put white skinned models on our brands? I dread to think
that is a whole other bunch of idiots for us to deal with.

India is being Mumbaied royally, Mind it! Ugh.

We're the Superloser, and proud of it!

Former President Mr. Abdul Kalam made a startling statement recently -
that he expected India to be an information superpower by 2020. A lot
of Indians have been using the word "superpower" in their expectation
of their country reaching that status, in the very least, in their
minds.

As Indians, we lack perspective about most things Indian, not only
because 70% of our population is below the age of 33 but because a
very small percentage of us have travelled abroad or extensively
enough to know where we really stand in comparison to other countries.

Is it in any way essential that we become a superpower? Are there any
measurable benefits to being such a power? Naturally, we should look
at the lone superpower in the world today, the USA, for some pointers,
and the gap is not something to be scoffed at. The USA is where it is
because of years of investment in science and technology, incentives
for innovation, and relentless application of the rule of law.
Recently, they have even made advances in freedom of speech and
reducing the impact of racism.

India is where it is because of our collective subscription to
socialist notions, our lack of integrity in implementing any policy we
put in place, and our almost militant aversion to innovation, not to
mention the rule of law being hijacked by a political structure that
breeds nothing but degradation of every principle we should be
standing by as a democracy.

In other words, India's democracy has never been on track, but we're
indifferent enough to let it have its survival. We have no problem
with democracy, simply because it can put up with all our ills and
stupid notions. Any other form of government or governance would
involve effort but this dummy democracy works for us because it gives
the average Indian the least amount of work to do, the most amount of
benefits, and the greatest rights to remain mediocre.

In the conceivable future, India is not going to do much more than
make feeble attempts at what the USA has achieved years before, will
not innovate, will not encourage leapfrogging technologies, and will
not take decisions capable of reshaping India's rise in the coming
century. We will rise, but not when compared to other countries that
will also rise during this period that had similar starting points as
us.

The reasons are not that hard to arrive at. We have the dumbest, most
crooked, shadiest and self centred politicians, because WE elected
them. But then, let's look at who is doing the electing. The average
Indian versus the Average citizen of the USA. The average Indian
thinks nothing of paying a bribe to get something done. The
counterpart in the USA would raise hell if such a demand was made.
The average Indian has no problem putting up with filth, dirty smells,
and absolutely dirty surroundings. We just get used to it. People of
the USA have by and large set higher public hygiene standards for
themselves. The average Indian doesn't think anything of breaking
rules, whether it is in traffic or in stealing water using a suction
pump to take water illegally from the public distribution system. You
would never hear of any of this from the average person in the USA.
No wonder we have lousy government, and we participate in the blame
game rather willingly!

Stay in a hotel in India, in which foreigners, especially those with
white skin are staying as well. What are the chances that Indians get
the same level of attention and service as the foreigners? Zero. As
long as we volunteer for the lower level of service, we will continue
to be the lower people.

It's hard to look at ourselves and think, "We're inferior", but all
measurable indicators point to precisely that. India is an inferior
country compared to the developed world, and not much better than most
in the developing world. In fact, we rank 134 in the UN development
index. Considering there aren't a billion countries, and indeed only
232, this is not by any means a place to be for a "Superpower" to be,
is it?

The baggage of our "great culture" weighs down heavily upon us. We
also assume that other countries have no culture and we have some kind
of bragging rights about what a great culture we have. Oh, yes, when
a woman is molested on the streets of Patna, in plain view of video
cameras and policemen watching, we definitely seem to be showcasing
our great culture.

Our slave mentality constantly dictates how low we should treat our
own country. Look at our software industry, that thrived when the USA
was booming. Not very many of our software companies that earned
enormous profits really took it upon themselves to play a role that
would bring the benefits of the information revolution to the average
Indian. The USA has a recession, India begins to lose jobs and
despair. Why does it have to be this way, instead of using our
incredible ancient wisdom and being able to predict such collapses and
being prepared?

It isn't how much money is in the kitty that can come to define a
"superpower". It will take eons before the standard of life of the
average Indian can come anywhere close to somebody living in the USA.
Enough of comparisons. Now, let's take the absolute view.

Our railway stations do have dust bins, but most Indians prefer to
throw their garbage on the tracks. Go to a wedding and watch our
guests leave the buffet area looking like a garbage dump. It shows in
the attitude that we don't want to live in clean surroundings. We
think nothing of trashing the country for others.

Our law enforcement mechanism cannot enforce any law, because our
police force is incredibly corrupt. So, we don't care for law
enforcement, for we have set this standard for ourselves that the law
exists only to be broken. What is really unfair is that law abiding
citizenry are also endangered because of this callous attitude and
there is no breaking this vicious cycle. We just don't care!

We have the roof of an international airport leaking in the rain,
flooding an entire section, and the Chief Operating Officer is happy
enough to say no flights and operations were affected. In other
words, we should have had anacondas and pythons coming through the
roof and eating passengers and pilots before we would really care
about the hole!

We're losers. India is a fourth world country caught in a dream of
making it to the third world. We think that is the first world,
because we know no better and we care even less. The dream is not
making us work hard, with our heads held high. It is giving us the
illusion that with very little effort, we will somehow make it there,
amongst the best nations in the world. That in itself is a joke worth
laughing ten times over. We have nothing, absolutely nothing to be
proud of.

Please spare us this superpower rhetoric, Mr. Kalam. We'd be happy to
just live without these horrible pressures of life in India. The rest
of us, I would beg, stop using this word like it is our birthright of
some sort. It is a needless aspiration, and one that is bound to be a
joke sooner or later, more likely sooner, and it's not a funny one
either.

Besides, it is completely unnecessary, especially if it might come
with added responsibilities. Oh, no! We don't want any of that now,
do we?

Need to connect ‘Shining India’ and ‘Backward India’: Rahul Gandhi

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article30622.ece?homepage=true

What're you waiting for, Rahul?

Here we are!

"This is very bad, very, very bad!"

Condemnation is usually inevitable, and it is usually timely from all
talking heads all over the world. It is easy to dish out, and one can
add any amount of viciousness to it, without any fear of a
proportionate bite back. We are after all the human collective, and
very happy to be in the comfort zone of watching and doing nothing,
and we in India, are the kings and queens of this collective. Not
unless our very existence is under threat do we even bother to open
our eyes to wrong. Of course we are quick to condemn, because it
costs nothing, and it is easy to get away with.

Forty people died two days ago by drowning in the Thekkady lake,
almost all of them tourists. It would have been less spectacular if
some white foreigners were not amongst them, but they were, Thank God!
Now, this is international tragedy! A freaking calamity! So, heads
will have to roll! There's a full fledged investigation into what
happened, and even ex-Navy officials have chimed in with the inside
story on life jackets and lifebuoys, and the first clean chit has been
given to the engine of the "ill-fated" boat!

For some reason, when all people in the upper deck of the boat rush to
one side to see animals, and the boat capsizes, it doesn't seem to
have much to do with the engine. Nevertheless, here we have it, in
our typical Indian incompetent fashion, with the idiotic nerve to even
report something as stupid as this - "The engine of the boat has
received a clean chit"! Great. Do we hear anybody condemning this
nonsense? Of course not. Because it needs a little thought before we
can spew.

The reason behind this tragedy is very simple physics. The boat that
was carrying these tourists overturned because it was simply not built
to have a severely uneven distribution of load. Add the extra height
of the upper deck, and the moment provided by a one sided load from
that height simply turned it over. It had no deep keel, not much of
its structure under water, and certainly not enough balancing load on
the upper or lower decks. No matter how badly maintained the
lifebuoys were, no matter how nobody had lifejackets on, this is the
reason for people dying - using a boat not designed properly for all
people to rush to one side on the upper deck.

It means that safety norms were either neglected or not even known,
given that this is India, where we still think it is "fashion" to wear
seat belts while we drive at mad speeds with licensed murdering
lunatics all around. It won't be so fashionable when you die in a
crash in a head on collision, but never mind accountability, and never
mind this investigation. We don't even have a fundamental
understanding of how to implement standards and specifications in a
simple tourist ferry operation, and that exposes one of India's
fundamental attitude problems. We neglect everything we can get away
with. Forty people didn't get away with this, did they?

It is a good thing our planes are built by Boeing and Airbus, for if
HAL were to have built any of them, we wouldn't even have safety
instructions, maintenance routines and airworthiness checks. If any
plane crashed because of a wing falling off, we'd still give a clean
chit to the engine, which by the way is most likely to be imported.
Remember the Indian Airlines brand new Airbus A330 that crashed in
Bangalore? Indian investigators were quick to blame Airbus for it,
but had to hastily withdraw their claim when all data from the flight
data recorders, and the cockpit voice recorders and other scientific
evidence clearly pointed to the fact that that pilot had fed in the
altitude as the rate of descent, and even confidently answered in the
affirmative to the plane's computer asking him back if he was sure.
Cocky bastard killed over a hundred people.

We have a lot of people in this country who are licensed to murder us.
Drivers who use the turn signal to "allow" a passing vehicle, other
drivers who think this is the rule, fools who don't put their lights
on low beam when another vehicle approaches, the fruit markets that
sell produce spuriously ripened, restaurants that use dubious
additives in the food, and the entire government machinery that
supports the sub standard functioning of all services available to the
Indian citizen are all responsible for the systematic murder of people
- you and I are definitely on the hit list, make no mistake about it.

We Indians are so arrogant in our preoccupied states of being indian,
that we don't consider ordinary things worth maintaining, or others'
ordinary lives precious. A life jacket is called a life jacket with
good reason. If people aren't handed one as soon as they get onto a
boat, or if they are not in a position to get one very quickly, it is
useless to have them. This boat that drowned out forty lives in
Thekkady had life jackets! They were most definitely there to satisfy
the bureaucratic requirements - nothing more than a checklist! This
definitely had less to do with keeping the boat operationally safe and
more to do with having to answer questions in their absence. It is
simply the Indian thing to do. As long as nobody questions us, we
must be perfect. When somebody does question us, how dare they?

For the sake of our own lives, let's condemn our apathy first and
foremost. Let's condemn the stupid statements that come out of our
incompetent politicians and decision makers. Let's condemn the inane
noise that comes out of the mouthpieces of government. Let's condemn
the gap between "requirements" and implementation. Let's condemn the
lack of scientific temper in our approach to development. Let's
condemn the rise of stupidity over knowledge, the rise of noise over
truth, and the rise of nebulous inaction over clear actions. Since we
are so good at condemnation, can we please learn where to aim it?