Arbit Scratchpad

We all feign, act and portray certain behaviors at some point in time in our lives, even if we are not truly what we are portraying ourselves to be. What is true (especially mental states) and what is not is again subjective, it depends on your inner state of things. Say you are nervous and feel low in confidence - is it really so or is it that your mind is auto-suggesting itself that you are low on confidence when you are actually confident (could be the opposite too). Pretension and faking/falsehood are not really positive aspects of any personality especially if the motive is ulterior, as in the case of professional swindlers. However at times we have to 'act' in order to get something done! Act pricey, act polite, act hurt - acts that we play out everyday. The movie ‘Nautanki Saala’ seems to have this underlying thread of fake it till you make it within the movie along with several aspects of the acting that we do. Act righteous, act nasty, act good and act bad to ...

All this noise Leaves us numb! I’d rather be Deaf and dumb! Sometimes it all sounds like laughter, Sometimes like a loud blast of shrieks! The cacophony distorts the real. As some solitary confine we seek. Am I being too pessimistic? Sound often gets masked out by visual delights. Listen for those moments of lows and highs! And wait. Just sit still, now. That heavy, creaking iron door, Makes sounds, Like some distant child Wailing, hurt! Ah! The vegetable-vendor hawking Booming sounds - like from some scuffle. Not cries of despair in a riot actually, But perhaps excitement over his greens! What do they speak, shout, bad-mouth about? Gossip or some pressing, important debate? Adda over coffee, on cricket and gang-rape. No maybe a social movement taking shape! Sparkling sounds of stainless steel kitchen utensils Sounding like drums - rock and roll. And then there is Music; That sounds like the Universe, whole!

WOW!! Rediscovered this old homepage which I had thought Geocities had erased: http://www.geocities.ws/shamit_bagchi/

Or perhaps redefining what a 'Good Boy' is. Is a good boy someone who is constrained by his mind to not attempt anything risky or anything not in the realm of the ‘positive’? Even avoid thoughts of the nature? Is it so because the person will get tagged negative? Do we or our social circles often enforce such a mentality? Who is a good boy? What is the definition of ‘good’ for a good boy then? Someone who experiments and then and only then figures out what is true or good and what is not. Or someone who follows pre-conceived notions, tradition and norms imposed upon us and is bounded by them - following a track laid down by others, playing by the rules and maximizing some notion of goodness and other measures of profit, wealth or fame and stature again defined by someone else. The later may not necessarily be the case. This fear of being bad or never attempting anything new doesn’t that hold back from exploring or attempting anything that is a break away from society’s sha...

O’ Bestower of lights, Of warmth, and radiant glow! There it is - the unmistakable chill Accompanying your arrival! This time however, It conceals a dizzying festive zest; And as the lights from the array of earthen lamps flicker Dancing like those intricate works on her saree’s pallu, They now infuse  Akin to the blistering variety of fireworks  Colorful bursts of joy inside of my mind! Continued from last year's ' Diwali - The Conjuror '

Note: Spoilers ahead if you have not watched it yet. I knew the movie would be full of comical antics and also emotionally charged as the promos indicated and as I knew the lead character would be deaf-mute and the heroine supposedly autistic. The Ala Barfi song in the beginning is nicely done and Ranbir Kapoor starts to showcase the fact that he has totally got into the spirit of the character he plays. Now imagine what happened. As the film proceeds I am actually trying not to get swayed by a few emotional scenes and some portions that seem artificial (all too sugary, trying too hard types) to me. Although a movie is a story after all – concocted, contrived and melodramatic like most Indian movies are, however this movie as it turns out got everything right! I laughed and enjoyed many scenes, right from the starting (till the very end actually) but I continued to somehow resist the trap of getting too involved until the scene where Barfi (Ranbir) returns home from Shruti’s...