EXHALE

Lie low...stay calm,

Get slow....rest your palm,

Find peace....apply balm,

Choose serenity.... Reject the ruckus,

 The stampede for success is self destructive.

 EXHALE.!!! 

Flush out fears...demolish the demons, 

Cleanse the soul.....become whole,

Abandon mirages.....discover yourself, 

The clamour for glamour is frivolous;

EXHALE !!! 

Embrace life...expect the frailties,

 Face challenges. ...accept the follies,

Learn from mistakes. ..welcome the outcome,

 The discord in God's accord is for a reason. .....

 EXHALE !!! 

Let go......of negativity, 

Cut loose....your losses,

Don't weep....over the bygones,

Don't give up .....scope for hope, 

The tower of inner power is invincible. ..!

 EXHALE. ..!!!

We've got to deal with it

My article in Good housekeeping magazine October 2015 issue..

COLOURS OF INDIA

Red tapes,

Yellow Journalism,

Saffron Supremacy,

Green Crisis,

Blue Laws,

Purple Protests,

Grey markets,

White Lies,

Black Bans….!
That’s the palette of INDIA, filling its canvas with,

A Streak of Despair,

A Ray of Hope,

A Splash of Sorrows,

A Rainbow of Joys,

A Smidgen of Gloom,

And,

A full Spectrum of unbridled joie-de-vivre !

BROTHERS IN ARMS

Before you could react from astonishment to disgust and despair, controversy's favourite child, our very own megastar bhaijaan, does a volte-face over his series of scandalous tweets (sympathetic towards Yakub Menon) ostensibly made under the influence of a midnight stupor. Pertinent point is, is he ever in his senses? 

After an extraordinary image makeover from a hotheaded, muscle-rippling, don't-give-a-damn dude in previous money-spinners to a golden-hearted simpleton without a deceitful bone in body in his latest blockbuster, Salman Khan must be having the last laugh all the way to the bank. He has successfully dodged a stay at cells (at least for the time being) to stay bindaas at the celluloid, mocking his detractors and naysayers. 
He does have his saviours though, from 'badnaam' munni to an angelic munni...! If one was the ultimate fantasy queen,the latest is quite like a fairy princess, pristine and beatific. The former resurrected his erratic, down-swinging career graph while the younger Munni has aided in cementing his supremacy at the superstardom ladder. Lady Luck smiles at him while Destiny Dear has him under its folds. No wonder, this nearly fifty years old guy is developing fifty shades of megalomania.

Like millions of Hindi cinema lovers, I've been his fan since 'Hum aapke hain Kaun' days, loving his onscreen supercool projections and dismissing all his off-screen inanities and news of shenanigans with just a frown. Popular opinions have him as a lovable rogue, a generous and helpful guy with his heart at the right place while his head does all the wrong. The fact that at times he crosses the the limits of civilised behaviour, takes people for granted, flouts the judiciary and the laws of the land, is all forgiven and forgotten repeatedly. 

When an aging neo-nabob needs his father (Salim Khan)to come up to his defence and coverup his indiscretions, it reveals the stunted mental growth of big guys like Sunjay Dutt and Salman Khan. Big guys with little brains and even lesser common sense trying hard to hoodwink the public by becoming this 'bade dil wala' human being and diverting attention from their majorly flawed personalities.  But the biggest sucker is the idolising junta which lets a celebrity get away with all his asinine utterances. Either you believe in what you say or shut up. If you take a stand, stick to it, face the cacophony, but at least show some integrity by holding onto your beliefs and viewpoints firmly. Or maybe you DO have a stand, presumably not favourable to the country, but which can't be talked about for obvious reasons ?In which case it doesn't bode well for you, or for us, the zillions who like (a gross understatement) your movies and enable you to earn gazillions.

Paper Tigers (pun intented) never did any good. Bhaijaan won't benefit at all by extending 'bhaichaara' towards an established terrorist. Being human is good but being soft towards hardcore anti-nationals isn't cool. Bajrangbali ki Kasam !

        

MAGGI - The Magic Wanes

Seldom has any instant food captured the imagination and taste buds of a country as did Maggi noodles when it first arrived in the subcontinent in the early eighties. For a country thriving on fresh food and wholesome eating with prime emphasis on cereals and grains, the advent of Maggi noodles with its 'two minutes' tagline opened new frontiers of instant fancy cooking. International cuisines were out of bounds for ordinary citizens. Although Chinese cuisine was getting increasingly popular amongst the generation X, one didn't attempt to replicate the intricate haute cuisine at home. In this scenario, Nestle's foray in introducing the maggi noodles into Indian market was an instant success. 

Television had just gathered momentum after the 1982 Asian games held at New Delhi. India was well poised for its experimentation with world films and food. Our drawing rooms were suddenly full of good-looking people telling us what to wear, what to eat, what to see, who to admire and how to step out of our closet. Tempting days lay ahead. The globalization of India had begun and the world far away was no longer a mystic dream.

Maggi ads targeted the young spirit craving for yummy, out-of-the-box recipes rather than the staple pakodas, samosas, cutlets, parathas etc which our mothers specialised in treating us to. A cup of hot water, a packet of noodles with its little pouch of masala...two minutes cooking time and VOILA...! You got a slurpy, delicious bowl of noodles ....any day, any time. The ease with which one could jiffy up a mouth-watering snack made even our mothers warm upto this outsider rather than banishing it. As times went by, the elders too embraced the maggi noodles whole heartedly. At colleges and hostels it became a mandatory item along with a packet of chips or biscuits. You knew you could never go hungry with a Maggi noodles packet by your side. Summoning up a cup of boiling water to ready the whole thing was never going to be that difficult a task. Maggi noodles was everybody's comfort food in no time. Not surprisingly it continued its dominance for over 3 decades. Product innovations and smart packaging kept luring the youth into the magical world of Maggi despite several sporadic warnings about it being unhealthy. 

The recent laboratory tests which found lead in excess of the permissible limit and MSG in packets of Maggi has brought out the unsavoury aspects of an otherwise star-stellar eatable. As a concerned mother of growing kids, I'm facing an uphill task deterring my offsprings to lay off their favourite food for the time being. 

Arguments floating around that no food item is 100% safe is tantamount to criminals arguing that no human is angel ! I must say it stands on very flimsy grounds. Nestle ought to come up with convincing arguments in defence of its star product. After all it isn't just any other food item but one that had become a reliable friend of millions of Indians over the years. Brand Maggi has taken a severe beating. Parents and advocates of healthy eating feel vindicated. "I told you it's not healthy", they may smirk but what's at stake isn't just the lab findings but the breach of trust we feel at the lack of quality control over branded food products. Topping it all is the guilt of having fed our kids kilos of toxicity , eyes wide open, all these years ! 

As of now Maggi Mania Express has come to a grinding halt. Whether it gets further derailed or recoups to come back on the right track is going to be an interesting watch. The wait is definitely going to be more than 2 minutes. 

Am I going to start reading labels and researching funny sounding ingredients in an item before consuming ? You bet I am !

PIKU- a study of the selfish gene

We all loved Piku- a wholesome, winsome, funny and endearing tale of a modern woman and her tumultuous relationship with her cranky, hypochondriac, septuagenarian father.The fact that the fabulous Mr.Amitabh Bachchan portrayed Piku's father made us love the old man so much more. His continued obsession with his belly motions had us in splits. The wit and the banter between the two and the various other characters in the movie seemed so real and quite in tandem with our middle class sensibilities. Like the protoganist Piku, today's generation is torn between love and duty for aging parents and pursuance of personal goals and ambitions. Who wins in the tussle is anybody's guess? A lot of folks are fine tuning themselves according to their kids' wishes and lifestyle but a few like Bhaskar Bannerjee, Piku's father, have subjugated their logical reasoning at the altar of the selfish gene working overtime in their frail bodies. Yes, it sounds blasphemous but an undeniable and uncomfortable fact screaming at us is that Parents can be selfish too !  At times their self obsession and an overpowering need to be cared for by their offsprings blinds them to their children's aspirations and the practical aspects of life. They don't hesitate in imposing  their will upon their kids and often resort to the 'brahmastra' of emotional blackmail to win their case. No arguing, no debating, they are the judge and jury. Next only to the almighty! 

When we see Piku's father, we see a class act by Amitabh Bachchan and get mesmerised by his brilliance as an artist. We fail to get put off by his excessive dependence on his grownup, harried and multi-tasking daughter trying her level best to build her life around her whimsical father's numerous eccentricities. His reluctance to allow her to marry anyone, his weirdly embarrassing comments (she's not a virgin, he says to a first time acquaintance), his obstinate ways aiming at deliberately making life difficult for her don't scandalise us because we know it's just Amitabh enacting one of his characters par excellence. On analysing the character dispassionately, it becomes clear there is a scared old mind set on high self-preservation mode behind the agglutinant father who wants to hold onto his daughter as a lifeline. He is unapologetically clinging and demanding. It's obviously amusing for the audience but clearly enormously exasperating for the girl at the receiving end of the drama; the loving, dutiful daughter at the end of her tether. 

"You can't judge parents", Piku says defensively about her father after his death. Here is an intelligent, no-nonsense girl who tolerated a lot of shit from her father. This one line summarises the beauty of a parent-child relationship. It doesn't adhere to ordinary standards of behaviour. You don't always need to critically analyse each other. You know each other's weak points ,you learn to accept them and still love one another limitlessly, timelessly - Selfishness be damned. Genes win. Always. 

Bombay Velvet - serenading the city of dreams

A stylised, detailed and perfected, velvety walk into the retro gallery of gangsters and glamour dolls, of passion and retribution. Love and life become nightmarish in the budding city of dreams, an impeccably re-created Bombay of 1960s. Ranbir (restless soul with a crazed look in eyes aiming to die like a 'big shot') and Anushka ( jazz singer with exaggerated, gothic inspired makeup and elaborate costumes and pouts) shine through, while Karan Johar is more comical than sinister. A sore, jarring factor is the constant smoking by every character in the movie ! Did nothing to add to the cool quotient of the movie but made me seriously worry if I'll start coughing by the end of the movie ! Now, if only the audiences get lured into watching a 'hatke' movie and cough up enough moolah to make such ambitious and self-indulgent ventures financially viable projects in future. Wait n watch.