Two Horns, A Wild Grin and A Eunuch !!

7:32 PM by Me, Inside-Out!!
Honk, Honk, Hooooonnnnkkkk,...... Good, god ! Missed by a whisker.


The tense situation in every man's life which he bravely faces every day is that time when he knows that the light on the bloody traffic signal,which is green and smiling is about to turn red and eventually as if it sees you coming, it turns to red. It is that moment, where you are in two minds whether to raise the throttle or hit the brakes. You can see the sense of defeat in the eyes of those people who are in the very front row of the traffic signal.


"Had I not seen that girl, had I not picked the call, Had I sped just a little faster, Had that nerd dint come in front of me, Had I not.....?"


I face this situation literally every day of my life. I sometimes feel, every other signal in Bangalore city recognizes me and just to, mind you, just to tease me, they turn to red, when they see me coming. I believe, they even have a flair to read people's mind. Perhaps, my case is somewhere used by them as a case-study in their training for this skill, coz there skill-sets turn to its most-correct-phase, when they see me coming. The more the eagerness to reach, the more they make you wait. I even try to enact that I am not getting late, but still these buggers see the real me, or probably I am not thaaat a good actor..!


Another funniest of the situation at the traffic signals is the heights of urgency people show when they are waiting for the traffic signal.... When the light turns from red to green, even the person standing half a mile from the signal starts honking as if he would fly over everybody in front of him and cross the signal.....


Lemme tell you something which most of the people don't know. In India, and especially in bangalore, eunuchs and traffic signals have a huge cartel amongst them. The moment they see a wealthy rich kid in his super bike or a techie in a rick, one blink towards the signal, and it turns red. So much so it makes these innocent "about-to-be-mauled" victims stop right in front of them.Then the usual molestation to grab some bucks......



Hope many of you have observed, now-a-days traffic signals have only two lights. It should be either a red or a green. The other counter part has now become a history. "Papa, what is the yellow light for in this picture?" "I dont know baby, I never see these now-a-days. My grandfather used to say that we should get ready to go when this yellow lights appears." The orphaned yellow light can only be seen at night when it greets the dark and empty roads, saying to the world "See, I told you, I am alive". 


Why do I give so much of attention to this? Because traffic signals are new for me. The town from where I came from, has only one signal, which is installed only to show off, I repeat, ONLY TO SHOW OFF that the city has one. It never tried to stop people. My city's traffic signal is one of those kinds which understands people's thoughts and helps them. It knows every man in this world is in a state of urgency and I should not be the one to shatter their endeavors.


So next time you are near traffic signal, watch it carefully. You can see two horns, a wild grin and a eunuch waiting for you !!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. - It means Post Script, if you don't know ! And pardon me for this PJ !
8 What did you feel?

Are you an atheist ?

11:57 PM by Me, Inside-Out!!

"Do you believe in god?". Duh ! What a question to start with..........

There I was sitting with her on a sunny day of a "planned to be a good" weekend, sipping a nice little hot cuppa, and then like a loud thunder , her question goes inside my ears vibrating every inch of my left over ear drums (Yeah, I listen to a lot of music, loud ones the most).

"Ahem ! Not, I mean, Not much, you..you know, n..not..not really," Holy crap !! This guilt sometimes makes people the super-stammerers of the world. I knew she was an ardent devotee, a god fearing person to the core, every inch of it.

"So you are an atheist?", Why, Why, Why people are so keen on making me start with a lecture when they clearly know, I wont even stop to breathe if I launch myself. I tried to cajole the orator in me, with a silent lullaby.

"Anything else ?", "No, cheque please", For the first time, I started to see waiters as life guards. Here was I, saved by a waiter from drowning myself into an eternal abyss of arguments.

Atheism has been the most controversial term, raped extensively to the whims and fancies over the time immemorial. Being born to a strong atheist father and an equally orthodox and god-loving mother, it has been a confusing world for me.

"Ma, what is the benefit of praying to god?", with an agarbatthi(incense stick, in our language, dont ask why is it called so) in my hand encircling in front of an idol, still confused in which direction should I go about? clockwise or anti....?. I remember this episode during my school days, like it happened few days back. She, with a Puja-ki-thali (No synonyms in english, My bad!!) in her hand, calmly asked back, "Why do you want to see benefits in everything you do?". Great ! A counter question. I have been bred upon a constant diet of debating in my family. FYI, Whenever we used to watch tv, for instance, even a comedy show, we went to the extent of seeing pros and cons of a joke. thats how we are?

But that question still remained unanswered. Is it in the nature of the human race that we try to see what we get, in everything we do, rather than see what others can get from it. Its not that I am an ardent philanthropist. You know I have the looks of a "Miser-next-door". Probably even my heart thinks twice before beating, what will it get in turn for its efforts.

I know, I have been going around lots of things in this post. But I would sum it up in a while, I swear.

Worshiping God or not, theism should not be connected to the supreme soul. Let me reveal something, I am neither a believer nor a god-hater, if there is any word like that. You can call me agnostic, a confused man as I described before. I do not want to give a shape and a size to him. I even know that it has become a fashion statement to the people to call themselves atheist. Believe me, I am not in that crowd. What I want to express here is that one should not relate the notion of theism to god, but to the concept of Altruism or Selflessness.

I feel, our ancestors created this concept of "GOD" only to encourage people to indulge in good deeds and create fears among them from doing the more attractive opposite of the former. But this rationale had been manipulated to largest possible extent worldwide which gave rise to different flavors of religion and caste. This was bound to happen, because when anything so subjective is conceived, then you are nothing but sure to have different versions of the same perception. In this, the overriding purpose was forgotten or perhaps lost in the transition.

It is the sense of selflessness that matters the most than the belief in god. If we start doing anything that would benefit others, then we are justifying the very existence of God, fulfilling the rationale. If you feel not worshiping god is atheism, then yes I am an atheist. Because I dont feel any benefit either to me or to any other person. I have seen devote worshipers doing unbelievably evil deeds to the society. There's no point in calling themselves believers of god, no matter how many zillions of donation they give.

"You didn't answer my question, Are you an atheist ?" The look I saw in her eyes was enough for my adam's apple to give out a gulp. Classic sign of timidity ! I started looking here and there to see if any waiter sees me and gives another try !!!! But even they were probably with her and were waiting to corner me.....

Provocations and nature's call, No one can hold it for a long time, neither cud I ! You were the one who provoked me, dont make me responsible for the aftermath. Here I go, " See, Atheism cannot be defined in one sentence. It all depends on the perception of the people. A thing may be good to you, but not for me.. One cannot.."

"No ! Here you go ! Not again, Whats wrong with you? why do you start giving sermons always. Cant you answer this simple question? Now move fast, we are gettin late."

No one would feel happy getting loathed. But I did that day. I felt she understood me completely. There I was shamelessly smiling on being scolded, shaking my bike's fuel tank to guess the hole that was about to dent my wallet and getting ready for a looooong drive........
6 What did you feel?

My Set of the Finest movies !!

11:07 PM by Me, Inside-Out!!

These are some of the best films of mine, which I feel people must watch. They are not being rated in the sequence. They are all equally good and are my top five films.


1] Blood Diamond:


Amazing plot !!! I would rate this performance of Leonardo, the best, better than titanic and his role in “The Departed”. However I feel, his role was not the meatiest in the latter than in the former. The director Edward Zwick’s style of narration has been dead on and will make you move alongwith the film without making you feel that this scene is not required. And even after forcing myself to concentrate on other parts of the movie, I still cant resist myself to extol about Leo’s performance. It was an Oscar worthy performance, but damn it was Forest Whitaker, who bagged it for the Last king of scotland(Although his performance in it was exuberant). Not to forget, leo, however, got a golden globe….


2] The Passion of Christ !


Oh god ! I don’t even remember how many hours I had cried watching this film. Mel Gibson has reached the hearts of millions by putting the pain of Christ crucification on the screen. Some might find it gross, some might even find that he has crossed the lines by showing too much violence which ultimately does not create sympathy but awkwardness. I feel that’s not true, because the BIBLE though does not mentions how jesus was crucified, but still gives a picture of the pain and torture he went through during it. I don’t want to go into the argument of whether it was actually true or the good ol’ mystery of he being the “son of god”… But the way the film was shot, just makes you cry, and cry buckets.


3] Traitor:


I wonder why Bollywood did not try remaking this film.. or wait… they actually made an attempt, I guess.. Mukhbir with Samir Dattani (Fufff !! what a choice). Not exactly a remake because you just cant expect film like this to happen (yeah, you heard it right, happen) in India. It’s a story about a US Muslim, Samir Horn ( what coincidence) who leads a life of a police informer in a terrorist outfit. I strongly recommend people should go and watch this film. The way the story reveals is the best part of the film and you end up thinking how is gonna end.


4] Snatch !


I am developing a sense of respect to Brad Pitt and his style of acting. Earlier I used to think

he was just a chocolate boy who was interested in changing wife like changing knickers. (Uh ! I was pissed off when he ditched Jennifer Aniston). But his performance in Troy, Babel, Snatch, Inglourious Bastards (Dude ! the spelling’s right, it isn’t Inglorious ! Go check the title again), Button, etc, made me feel this bloody son of…. (Ok, I am still worried about of Jennifer…. ) has some serious talent in him.

Actually this film is not entirely his film. Infact this is not Brad’s film. This is Guy Ritchie’s film. Especially I like the scene where three different shots have been linked in a smooth manner.


5] A Wednesday and Aamir:


Bollywood’s rising ! And rising because of new comers. Not the chopras, johars, etc. These two films have changed (or atleast should change) the way the producers look a film as an art than a money making machine. The climax of Aamir and the exotic act put up by Naseeruddin Shah (India wont get a finer actor than Mr. Shah) are the highlights of these films. Neeraj Pandey and Raj Kumar Gupta should lead this revolution and raise the standards to give a competition to Hollywood.


I have just picked Five or rather six of the best movies that I have seen, which I feel everybody should watch. There are lots of others like, Sarfarosh, Apaharan, Casino Royale, Ek ruka hua faisla, Taken, Bourne series, etc., which are in the top of my shelf. I just picked up a few of them to share the best.


Go get’em and watch ! And don’t forget to comment and share about your versions of the best films !!

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