What do you want to do in your last semester? If you’re more like the brilliant student, maybe you should close your computer and study, but if you’re more like the awesome student, you should start working with us.

Ishaqzaade is more of a business product and less a movie. Designed to a tee with all the right components but tries too hard to be a lot of things and never really reaches anywhere.

A story credit to Aditya Chopra always buzzes off my mediocre-Cinema alert because expecting anything special from him is equivalent to expecting a crateful of Gatorade in the middle of the Death Valley. YRF has been making some seemingly unsafe and un-YRF like choices in recent past and has been successful too at times (Band Bajaa Baraat, Chak De India and the unsuccessful but brilliant- Rocket Singh) but this attempt, despite seeming to fall in the same category, is anything but. It sort of tries to cheat you with its item numbers, its pseudo-realistic feel and paper-thin characters which are meant to appear layered but never manage to do so.

This love story of doomed star-crossed lovers lacks the prime component of all, the passion. You never ever feel for any of the characters, you don’t care what they do, about their choices. This is where a movie like Rockstar still stands out in my memory, the amount of sheer passion and raw emotion in that one movie was equivalent to ten such average movies. There are romantic scenes galore but no love to be seen, bullets fly everywhere but without any particular intent, the emotions are forced and the story predictably reaches it’s climax successfully disconnecting the viewer in the process.

Compared to this, Habib Faisal’s previous directorial venture Do Dooni Char (a flawed but a litle gem of a movie) seems a masterpiece. But Yash Raj Films manage to do the Disneyfication of a seemingly hard-hitting story of two lovers caught between the crossfire of UP gangland. If only the movie had even a bit of passion as the previous line suggests.

Arjun Kapoor is awkward at times but instantly likable. The lines seem over-rehearsed a lot of times and the lad has a long way to go if he wishes to make a mark in the industry. For the time being he is only a better replacement for Abhishek Bachchan, which is not saying much.

Parineeti Chopra proves that she is the real deal. The role seems to fall into her familiar space but nevertheless she looks like the only one trying make sense of the proceedings. She would do well by taking up a role out of her comfort zone now.

Bottomline – Ishaqzaade is a disappointment. Habib Faisal has a lot to make-up for now.

Rating -

(P.S. – I gave it a rating of two and a half originally but the social-message-like epilogue at the end managed to take that half away. That was like salt in the wounds by trying to play the holier-than-thou card. So damn pretentious. About time you grew up, YRF. About fuckin’ time.)

1.The soothsayers

These are the itchy idiots who should have been hunted down till extinction. Or maybe, someone could have preponed their arrival so that they could have gone with the dinosaurs. Unfortunately, since that hasn’t happened, you must avoid them. They utter sheer nonsense and keep bullshitting around with their profound ideas. Also they will never bare it all, till you give them their fee, in cash or kind, or whatever shit they demand.

2. The Front Benchers 

Most of the pain in the ass is caused by these idiots who sit on the front benches. They ruin your life by getting the top grades, the top notch jobs and your girl. Well, in some rare cases, the girls who actually have “brains” go for the bad guys and that is when we come into the equation. Sadly though, even those girls who like bad boys suddenly grow up to marry the front occupying population. So, make it a point to avoid such people lest you want to feel robbed when considering your own marriage prospects.

3. The advice-givers

I know, even before I mentioned it, most of you already hate them. You need to stay away from people who give advice of any sort – sane, insane, does not matter. They end up eating a lot of your time and causing plenty of brain cell deaths every time they take up the mantle of handing out unrequited advice which you have been given already.

4.The Vegans

We have only one thing to say to them, “If you love animals so much, why eat their food?”.  The reason you must avoid them is that they will bore you with their crap about caring for all living creatures and animal species, so that instead of stopping hunters and poachers, they want to stop you from eating non-vegetarian food. Little do they notice that the vegan diet doesn’t really stop global warming, does it?

5.The “Just Married” Friend 

Just married. Just broke.

A scary transformation occurs after friends get married. They get married just at the moment when you are supposed to go on that “no-rules” trip. Even if you claim that your friends getting married has no effect on you, it is common knowledge that your family makes a big deal out of it. Especially if you are nearing “marriageable” age as well. Better to avoid than to suffer.

6. The Pseudo Sports Lover

 They may not have ever played a sport. They may be over-weight and sitting on a couch for all you know. But they will still give their “expert advice” about the game and claim to know more about it than the players themselves. Unless you want to know everything about a particular team, useless information about players’ personal lives, what their wives bought for dinner and how it would affect team performance, we believe you should avoid these people at all costs.

7. The In-laws

Did someone say "mother-in-law"?

One moment they are just strangers and the next moment, BAM! You’re married and you have to call your spouse’s parents as your parents. The law is strong in this one, we say. The in-laws will forever be those people whom you have to like because your spouse wants you to, but they will never actually like you. In case you’re a girl, it will be your husband’s mother, who’ll blame you for taking her son away from her. In case you’re a guy, it will be your wife’s father who will never trust your intentions with his daughter. Best way to avoid them – never get married.

We hope you have made a list of all the people in your life who fall into any of the above seven categories. Avoid them to make this a happy, peaceful life. You can thank us for it later, we accept card.

If you have any committed/married friends and want them to survive arguments with their female partners, share it with them and save their lives. Also, facebook has promised to donate $ 0.10 to ‘Save the harassed man’ organization for each share. Seriously, you can ask Mark.

Intense thinking, restless typing for hours on the keyboard, waiting for that ping so that you could finally start a private chat with someone who had caught your interest for a while. You would start with a Yahoo email id, download the Yahoo Messenger and sign in. With bated breath you wait for the sleeping, grey Yahoo emoticon face to wake up and beam with a certain joy, a wicked smile. Almost as if it’s telling you, “Once you go in, you can never come out”. You don’t realise it then, but you’re caught.

Now you’ve reached the place where you can choose your Chat Room. It’s like you choose your domain. It could be anything – Pokemon, Harry Potter, a regional chat room (if you’re the type who needs to socialize with people around your area) and so many more. It was heavenly, it was like talking to someone who is always listening, and listening to someone who is always talking. Create your own fancy “Avatar” (this was before the Na’vi and that failed movie by M. Night Shyamalan) so that you never have to reveal your bad hair days or acne to the world. Instant acceptance, instant gratification and instant messaging – all went hand-in-hand (in a strange, three-hand alien sort of way).

The Dreams Come True

So, maybe your Yahoo Chat Room experience wasn’t as elaborate as mine, maybe you got bored in a few hours and left. Nevertheless, I made a variety of friends across different time zones. People who claimed to be living in various exotic locations (like Kerala) and had such interesting lives. The only problem was that I had made up a different life for each one of them, so there used to be a lot of reading of hat history involved before I could safely ping these people and talk to them. Also, these conversations involved thinking like a 25 year old woman, a 17 year old boy and a 30 year old woman at the same time. Intense? Yes. Cumbersome? Never. There were of course mundane claims that I’d make to all my “online friends” – “I look a lot like that animated avatar”, “I like you too!”, “Of course I’ve read that book!”. It was such a lovely place for people to congregate and discuss about social events and well, okay hit on other people of course.

The Dream Ends

An unthinking decision on my part ruined everything. Who knew that installing a web-camera with a child-like greed in the eyes would result in the destruction of the very world that meant everything at that stage. One moment, I was just an avatar, with no way in which people could see the real me. The next moment, I was agreeing to “Do you have a web-cam? Can you turn it on?” questions without making sure that my hair were in place or that maybe acne season was not the best time to show yourself off to the world. It was too late, and here’s how it went-

young_ayush: So u hv cam nw??

<mylastname><myfirstname>@yahoo.com: Ya! I do….itz awsm1

<mylastname><myfirstname>@yahoo.com: *! sry.

young_ayush: cul. put it on?

<mylastname><myfirstname>@yahoo.com: nw…? lets tok mre. 

young_ayush: v hv tokd 4 so mny dayzz! put it on na….

<mylastname><myfirstname>@yahoo.com: k..k. w8.

This is where I proceeded to turn on the webcam, keeping the video on for myself to see as well. With weird open, oily hair and strange effects that the poor lighting had, coupled with the low-quality web-cam I bought, the effect created by my video was quite horrific. young_ayush logged off, his chat icon on offline, without saying a word, after just two minutes of streaming.

That’s when I realized that there was no way in which I could modify the video settings enough to make him understand that I didn’t really look that bad. Also, it made it obvious that in the chat-rooms, they might tell you that they love talking to you, but the moment they realize that you’re actually just a chubby kid on the other side, they disregard your words.

Of course, it helps that online chatting became rapidly “un-cool” and Yahoo! today is relevant only because of Flickr. Nevertheless, there was something about that place, which draws me back to its corridors, replaces this hollow shell with a sense of belonging.

An image from the future (we decided to exclude the weird hairstyle)

Although it is a so-called apolitical nomination, it clearly has ulterior political motives attached to it and is derived out and out due to politically motivated reasons. In a country where cricket is treated as a religion and Sachin Tendulkar as God, anybody can clearly imagine the benefits his association can bring out to the ruling party which has been overshadowed by the corruption, scandals and scams. Mr Tendulkar would mean heavy votes for the party. He could be used to strengthen the shaky grounds and manipulate the masses. The master blaster has consciously or unconsciously left his popularity, respect and brand image to be exploited by the Congress to fulfill their interests.

Mr. Tendulkar would need to have a clear understanding about issues of national and international importance, of local and community interests. The gentleman known for his polite ways would no longer be able to shrug his shoulders easily and avoid commenting on sensitive or controversial issues. He would have to set his vocal cords working loudly and efficiently. The world would be glued to what causes he support and what he doesn’t, weather he opposes the fuel price hike, what does he think about the Lokpal bill, what does Agni V mean to him and lots more. He is a man followed by millions so it is definitely not going to be a cakewalk for him to live upto his image after a political pitfall.

An appropriate comic by Satish Acharya

Also, his  appointment as the member of the “House of Elders” (not literally) would demand a constant commitmentand time  from him to do justice to his job as an MP. So it is highly questionable whether he would be able to spare enough time to handle politics unless and until he decides to take a farewell from the field and completely dip his hands into politics.

The little master definitely deserves a Bharat Ratna for his mind blowing achievements in the world of sports but the vicious world of politics seems too complex for  his comprehensions. How’s that??

As we grow older, we abandon the mundane. That’s what causes our downfall, I think. 

Okay, now that I’ve used some XML tags in the beginning, I believe that I’ve made a fairly funny statement and can go on with the rest of this article without any more failed attempts at humour. Only because i think that what you’re going to read next is unintentionally bizarre and I take a great personal risk as I share this with the world, with you.
Here are a few theories I had as a child (which means till about two years back, I believed all of this was true) -

1. The Pepsi Plant

At the tender age of 7, our entire class was told that we’d be going to visit the “Pepsi plant” in Greater Noida. At that age, one didn’t really worry about the cellulite in thighs so Pepsi was a preferred drink. We were all very excited, getting the consent form signed from parents, running around, the whole class was discussing Pepsi during recess.

However, it seemed to me very puzzling that we were going to a tree that gave Pepsi as a fruit. It clearly didn’t look like a conventional fruit and we hadn’t discussed it in Biology. So this mythical “Pepsi plant” bothered me for days till we finally went on that field trip and I realised that it was only a factory.

Lesson learnt- A plant doesn’t always refer to a living creature. A gardener is not also known as Plant Manager. 

2. The Boomer Cancer

I want a tattoo

I had an insane addiction to Boom-Boom-Boomer chewing gums when I was around 9. It was unstoppable, the insatiable hunger to chew on gum the entire day, those ads featuring children chewing on Boomer and become irrationally happy – they drove me wild. Of course now I only remember that good-looking Boom-Boom-Boomer man in Spandex…ahem. Anyway, back to the innocence of childhood.

The Boomer packets had tattoos inside them and my whole hand would be covered in strange discoloured fake tattoos of dragons and warriors. Tired of seeing them, I was told by my mother that if I put a tattoo for the third time, I’ll get cancer for sure. But only on the third application of the tattoo. I forgot about that warning till I realised I already had three tattoos on my hand and I spent ten scary days wondering whether I was going to die, hugging my mother at every instance. My whole life (of a mere nine years) flashed before my very eyes.

Lesson learnt – Cancer is bad but Boomer does not cause cancer.

 3. Boys were diseases, I think 

This was more like what we used to discuss in school around the age of 12. Our bodies were changing (okay, mine wasn’t showing rapid changes like some of the other girls) and we were looking at things differently. We felt mature and childish at the same time. However, the thing that tore us apart everyday was our perception of the opposite sex. I never understood when to make the transition between hating or loving them. One day we would regress back to the 6-year-old phase of thinking that boys were dirty, little creatures; the next day we’d talk about how dreamy that guy in 7th grade looked when he smiled. Then we thought about how “they do their thing standing…eew” and the next moment we were “he asked me for my notebook today”. Things had reached dizzying heights of confusion. Thankfully the full-blown hormones kicked in soon, saving us from further deliberation.

Lesson learnt – Boys are stupid, only till you’re thirteen and a half.

 4. Stepmothers are evil

Now this one is clearly marketed via fairy tales and old Bollywood cinema, so one can’t blame poor children from thinking that way. However, at the age of 8, I used that in a reverse psychology fashion where every time my mother forced me to eat more vegetables, do my homework or sleep on time, I’d go into defensive mode and demand her to “give me back my real mother” and accuse her of being the step-parent. I’m sure she forgave me, but I believe it must have been a little painful to endure. But hey! Don’t blame me, what with Cinderella and Snow White and the entire “sauteli maa” happening all around, once couldn’t really trust anybody without a paternity test.

Lesson learnt – If you look almost exactly like her, she’s most probably your mom.

5. What is she wearing underneath? 

How does she manage to expose shoulder?

Now this was somewhere around 13 where most girls had crossed over from the under-shirt to the fully mature brassiere and some of us were still languishing behind in that department. This meant that some girls were more superior, more womanly and also there was a fear that we (okay, just the not so well-endowed me) would not fully turn into women or men when we grew up, but would remain somewhere in the middle.

This also meant that whenever I saw one of those actresses wearing a strapless gown or a spaghetti top, I’d just sit and wonder what she was wearing underneath, considering my collared shirt could barely contain my under-shirt at times. It would make me a little jealous at times, but as they say, time endows all.

Lesson learnt – Double sided tape can do wonders. 

6. Clouds are just cotton candy

 Every fair, circus visit meant stuffing my mouth with lots of cotton candy. It was (is) so delicious. The spun sugar on a thin wooden stick really made me melt as it did the same on my tongue. Well, at that age, it was all the melting I wanted in my mouth, really. So my first airplane ride from Bombay to Madras at the age of 6 meant that it was my big chance to finally grab all the cotton candy that I possibly could, for which reason I refused to eat the in-flight meal (which was a good idea, considering it was Air India). I was sure I’d get my fill of the cotton candy clouds we were flying above. To my dismay, the air-hostess informed me that windows could not be opened and in the subsequent years I also learnt about cloud formations and how they contain water droplets. So, the cotton candy in the sky theory just drowned in the logic of science.

Lesson learnt – Not everything that looks delicious is edible. 

Although these misconceptions are only a few of the many that I had, they probably helped a great deal in preserving the idea of innocence, for as long as they could. Did you have any such childhood experiences? Feel free to share. 

I’ve just heard a new tune that Aditya has brought to the jam room and it has given me goose bumps. The working title for the song is Pappu Tatti. Perfect.

It’s got me thinking of all the tunes that have haunted me ever since I heard them for the first time. Riffs that I’ve fallen in love with on first listen. I’d like to share some of them with you.

1. Horsehead – The Black Crowes

It’s that sludgy, sexy opening riff that I cannot get over.

2. I wonder – Blind Melon

The guitar solo that closes the song. Enough said.

3. The Last Baron – Mastodon

It’s a simple riff, laid on a simple beat but it’s placed so beautifully in the middle of a swirling mass of complex riffs and drum rolls that it just has to stand out. You’ll hear it kick in at 8:20 in this live performance at the Aragon.

4. Lullaby – The Cure 

This is part of my Funeral playlist. I love the opening riff.

5. Secret World – Peter Gabriel 

When you have David Rhodes, Tony Levin and Rachel Z in your band, this is how a beautiful song becomes epic. The last few minutes of this song are essentially, the shit.

Engineering Students

Yeah, this pretty much explains what goes about if you’re an engineering student. Once upon a time, engineering was considered a very sacred field and engineers were saints. Those were the times when a proud father would proclaim loudly to anyone who would make the mistake of asking about his son, “My son has become an ENGINEER“. Stressing on ENGINEER with thunder and lightning in the background.

Now the times have changed so drastically that people are almost embarrassed to ‘confess’ that they’re studying in an engineering college.
“Long time!!! So what are you doing?”

“B.Tech, but I have other plans”

Hah! Believe me, there are no other plans. This dude is either going to end up working in one of those software companies that just hire dummy engineers to reflect up in their employee count… Or a call centre, which requires better English skills.
So let me take you to a ride in an engineer’s world (by which, I mean an engineering student’s world)

An engineer’s brain

the ideas an engineer has in the above displayed brain..

An engineer’s lab

(yeah, we’re all computer engineers, irrelevant whether you’ve chosen Mechanical as your branch. You’ll only go to HCL)

An engineer’s desk

An engineer’s blackboard

and finally, I present to you AN ENGINEER….

P.S.: The credit for photographs goes solely to my faithful sidekick Mr. Kryptonian. He can be found lying somewhere in the library at all times…

So now when you guys see a ‘Yahan Peshab Karna Mana hai’ wall, you know a small workaround that can save you some fine. Now, why not share it with your friends and save everyone’s money?