Stress Busters of the week

When stress gets you, who do you get? Apart from the poor unsuspecting tele caller I mean…

Top two stress busters of the week

Kiddie Conversations: These little people come in neat baggage and prejudice free packages. And they can make amazing conversation about planets, oceans, next door kids, tiffin boxes, Jonas brothers and other such esoteric concepts.

Point of stress: It’s not exactly a great feeling when a ten year old asks you, who Sting or Bruce Springsteen is? This pretty much is an exit cue, no point accumulating additional stress feeling like a preserved fossil from the Triassic

Gossip, Gossip and then some more: Nothing makes stress disappear faster than this sweet sounding three word line, you know WHAT?
No, I don’t, but I sure want to hear about someone else’s blooper to take away the focus from mine… Someone wants to think up a gossip hotline for stressed women?

The Irresistible Pull of Irrational behaviour

A new book called 'Sway' sheds some light on irrational behaviour in human beings.
Some major, salient “sways” mentioned in the book.

• We often overreact to potential losses, focused more on the short-term consequences rather than the longer-term effects.
• The more meaningful a loss is, the more loss averse we become, meaning we don’t want to give up our hold on the loss (even when it’s economically, emotionally or otherwise beneficial to do so)
• We hold on to the pervasive pull of commitment. When we are committed to a relationship, decision, or position in our lives, it can be very difficult for us to see the better, healthier alternatives available.
• Humans have a tendency to imbue someone or something with certain qualities based on its perceived value rather than objective data. This is called value attribution.
• If we see something labeled a certain way, we’ll take that label at face value.
• When things are discounted off of their regular price, people tend to give the product or service a reduced value attribution. In other words, when we get a discount on something, we tend to unconsciously value it less than if we had paid full price.
• Humans have a propensity to label people, ideas or things based on our initial opinions of them. The authors term this the “diagnosis bias,” and it includes our inability to reconsider those initial value judgments once we’ve made them.
• A single word or label can color our entire perception of a person, closing off avenues of shared experience and seeing people for who they really are. Once a person is given a label (and even directly, a diagnosis), it’s hard for people to see people in a way that isn’t biased by that label.
• “Mirror, mirror” effect – we like and look for people like us
• We constantly sway others and are constantly being swayed by our expectations and labels — what is called the “Chameleon effect.”
• It is vitally important for people to feel they have a voice. People want to be listened to and heard, even if nothing changes.

To end with the book offers no lasting solutions but to look at long term gains and perspectives than the short term ones. Now try explaining that to irrational beings...

Writer's Block leads to quoting other writers from a movie about writer's block

I had vowed will not lift quotes just like everyone else seems to be doing...a slight departure before my frenzied brain gets back to functioning mode...So, these aint quotes but extremely lucid lines and observations by that seemingly small but powerful group of people who dont change the world but still manage to move it - writers

Brilliant lines from movies.From the movie 'Adaptation'

John Laroche: You know why I like plants?
Susan Orlean: Nuh uh.
John Laroche: Because they're so mutable. Adaptation is a profound process. Means you figure out how to thrive in the world.
Susan Orlean: [pause] Yeah but it's easier for plants. I mean they have no memory. They just move on to whatever's next. With a person though, adapting almost shameful. It's like running away.
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Susan Orlean: There are too many ideas and things and people. Too many directions to go. I was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something, is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.
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Charlie Kaufman: There was this time in high school. I was watching you out the library window. You were talking to Sarah Marsh.
Donald Kaufman: Oh, God. I was so in love with her.
Charlie Kaufman: I know. And you were flirting with her. And she was being really sweet to you.
Donald Kaufman: I remember that.
Charlie Kaufman: Then, when you walked away, she started making fun of you with Kim Canetti. And it was like they were laughing at *me*. You didn't know at all. You seemed so happy.
Donald Kaufman: I knew. I heard them.
Charlie Kaufman: How come you looked so happy?
Donald Kaufman: I loved Sarah, Charles. It was mine, that love. I owned it. Even Sarah didn't have the right to take it away. I can love whoever I want.
Charlie Kaufman: But she thought you were pathetic.
Donald Kaufman: That was her business, not mine. You are what you love, not what loves you. That's what I decided a long time ago.
Donald Kaufman: Whats up?
Charlie Kaufman: Thank you.
Donald Kaufman: For what?

MNIK quick verdict - All hoopla, no heart

I have been wondering did the rest of the world and I go see two separate versions of the movie? I really didn’t find it ‘inherently sincere’ as Rajeev Masand put it and I certainly didn’t find it worthy of the five stars that TOI bestowed on it.
The marketing is way better than the end product. I don’t know if I can say end product, since didn’t stick to watching it till the end.
But overall found the movie (the first half at least– since that’s all I saw) to be fake, shallow and superficial trying to take the higher ground. The dialogues are amateurish, Kajol is screechy and over the top, the guy who plays her kid is so damn right down irritating and SRK as the bumbling but sincere autistic guy can grate on your nerves and you want to yell at him – ok come back to normal right now!
Films like these which deal with sensitive issues, need to be dealt with far more depth and sensitivity than marrying Kurbaan with K3G.
So Karan needs to get into introspection mode pronto, leave these kinds of films for filmmakers of the likes of shimit amin and rakesh mehra, and get back to those extravagant family dramas I so used to like…

Reality doesn’t bite anymore, it entertains

So Kamal Khan (in) famously known as KRK, at the home of Big Boss, in a fit of (scripted?) fury lashes out at fellow inmates and in the heat of the moment hurls a bottle at them. Not so grievously injured inmates and grievously injured egos do it for KRK and he is out of our lives for the moment, or so we would like to think. There he is back again in our drawing rooms telling us his version of the story on news channels…controversy certainly woos publicity, especially from the ‘breaking news’ hungry news channels and we keep seeing re-runs of the great bottle throw across channels.

Welcome to the lah lah land of reality TV. Every channel now has woken up to the‘reality’ of reality shows. They sure seem to work. Roadies did it for MTV and Big Boss for Sony. And just how many tear jerking soap operas can the channels churn out. So here they are; the next in line to numb our minds.

From public declarations of extra marital affairs (Sach ka Samna) to the choicest abuses and backstabbing specials in a dating game (Splitsvilla) to Swayamwar of item girls (Rakhi ka Swayamvar) they sure are dredging them out from everywhere. Borrowing from Baby Borrowers (Patni, Patni aur Woe, yeah yeah this is how I like to spell it), Big Boss from Big Brother and then just plain making it up as they go (Part II: Rahul’s Swayamwar)…So there are girls just waiting to be the ‘perfect bride’ and some slugging it out to be perfect parents, models overcoming their fears and phobia’s to become khiladi’s and then some volunteering to slug it out in a jungle (I don’t know about the creepy crawlies, but the contestants sure behaved like animals)

Where do we go from here? To the slums and to relive past lives, presumably. Another channel that wants to make its presence known and garner much needed TRP’s is putting its swish, ignorant- of –the- hardships of life contestants in slums, and yet another is planning on inviting us into the past lives of celebrities (we know all about their present lives, silly) through a past life regression analysis.

So after a hard day’s work, when you want to vegetate in front of the idiot box, trust me you get to do just that.

Musings some and Observations some

Whats with AB?....Why why would he take up something like anchoring Big Boss? One can see him as the host for KBC: understated, suave, the poser of intelligent queries, maintaining the fine line between approachable and intimidating... but what is he doing as the host of a vacuummed -of-intelligence voyueristic freak show? Guess AB is too busy with advertisements to take time out for introspection or is it that AB the persona is bigger than AB the person and we expect too much from a man who can be bought for too little...

Moving from AB and his principles or lack of them, whats with this city and and the redevelopment mania?...recently took a walk along a convenient short cut on an errand, and felt like alice would have on tumbling into wonderland...gone were the quaint old buildings,replaced with cookie cutter towers. All look principally the same, tall to qualify as a tower,painted in bright colours, sporting fancy names, a compound full of shiny parked cars and a surly looking watchman. So though miss the sight of charming old lived- in buildings,am glad atleast employment through watchmen and daily wage labourers is on the rise...

Of Kaminey, Caulfield & Lalbaug cha Raja

Yep, the only common thread twixt the three is me. Happened to experience all three in the same week...and yep as usual all three got me thinking...

Lets start with the god that lords over mumbai. Lalbaug cha raja. This diety is the biggest celebrity this side of town. And as i learnt last weekend, getting a glimpse of him, with both your feet on the ground and your belongings and bearings all in one place,is no mean feat.

Having declared myself as agnostic, i can conveniently jump from one side of the fence to the other. So from the believer side of the fence, family in tow proceeded towards lalbaug. Only to find the whole city in a serpentine queue for the darshan. After much jostling, shoving and pushing (lost my fav watch in the process) got 2 minutes of face time. But must admit is worth it. The moorti is quite magnificent and radiates a quiet benevolence. But might stick to watching him on the telly next time around than have the whole city treading on my toes. Guess, just about everybody is hungry for miracles.

From celebrated dieties to celebrated directors. Kaminey sure generated a lot of hype, thanks to all the 4 star reviews and was eagerly looking forward to it. But came away disappointed. The first half holds your attention only because you are busy trying to figure, what the hell is going on?...And though the film finally moves and starts making sense in the second half, it is not riveting. It is a huge exercise in join the dots and some dots like the mushy psychology of guddu and charlie's past botch it up.I did like the dripping with maharashtrian nuances bhope. And i loved priyanka as the fiesty maharashtrian mulgi.The sweety-guddu angle was nicely handled, and wish it had gotten more screen space than charlie's antics and weird dreams.As far as black comedies with confusion go, give me a jaane bhi do yaaron anyday.

Caulfied...ah holden kills me...he really does. After all these years, catcher in the rye can still grip and move you. What really makes it super as far as i am concerned are the sarcastic gems. Like when he is dancing with someone wooden, - it was like dancing with the statue of liberty, he says. And all those fictional role plays of him getting shot and bleeding from the gut, that he conjures up just about anywhere to amuse himself.Yes, holden kills me. It’s an exceptional insight into the mind of an intelligent, witty but somewhat rambling introverted teenager. Holden with beyond his age maturity, his craving for intellectual conversation and his feeling of not being understood...is a summing up of teenage angst of introverts at its best. Like holden says, a good book is one, when you want to call up the author and speak to him. I think a good book is one when you want to really call up and speak to the protagonist.So Holden, you are in queue, right after am done with sherlock holmes.