The Pursuant

Delhi Belly

Cast: Imran Khan, Vir Das, Kunaal Roy Kapoor, Vijay Raaz, Poorna Jagannath, Shenaz Treasury

Rating: ****

A crisp 96 minuter which takes you deep down the shit holes of Delhi and leaves you wondering whether all those rib tickling jokes were just potty humor or did you genuinely find them funny?

3 guys, midst dirt, messy apartment( basically some of our true stories) and some more dirt is what this movie revolves all around. 

The story line is simple, crystal clear. As they say humor is relative, what I may find funny you might not and so this movie is aptly given the adult rating(1- do not even take your kids to this one)(2 - if your a bachelor and you miss this one then don't blame me when your girl quotes a line from this one and your left wondering as to what, that was!). I was left wondering how the censor board let through so many things...SO MANY THINGS'.

There are parallel screenplays that keep colliding but are totally understandable. The film is about three Delhi bachelors, Tashi (Imran Khan), Arup (Vir Das) and Nitin (Kunaal Roy Kapoor), living in (by far) the filthiest place EVER!All of them do have a professionally stable background. Where Arup is a cartoonist , Nitin a photographer and Tashi a reporter they are the usual bachelors who have no interest(at all) in household work and totally hate their landlord.

Their routine life gets all haywire once they get their shit mixed up(literally) and  deliver a wrong package. And just for fun, just for FUN the wrong package that is being delivered is a stool sample!

What works in favor of the film is its dialogues and wonderful acting and even though the story does not have ground breaking stuff to offer you will not have time to relax your face muscles. By the time your down laughing about one thing another takes your toll.( I mean it). Can you but not stop laughing when a Russian has a firecracker stuck in his bum, a ceiling collapses and a brand new car gets its way trashed into pieces?

There were times where I  felt that the dialogues never sounded very 'Delhi' but yes the visuals were strong enough to remind me of the ugliest places and areas of Delhi and covered up for all those flaws.

Abhinay Deo after his little painful Game has done a brilliant job with this one and made sure that the technical side remains brilliant. Editing and casting are worth applaud. Rather I would give Delhi Belly the best casting for any movie this year.

Where Vir das has killed it with his brilliant comic timing, I felt Imran Khan was a bit repetitive and could have done well. But Vijay Raaz is the hero for me. He has just taken it  from the best villain to a WOW villain to me. Ram Sampath's music might be all contained in the background score and is thrown at you at the very moments it should have, the song Jaa Chudail is freaking hilarious.

This might not work with the masses cause of the fact that most of it is in English and that acts as a huge barrier.Plus such profanity and insanity is never seen in Hindi Cinema. The A certificate cant stop the awesomeness of the movie and it will cater to its audience in the best way possible.

Bollywood has taken a big  and BOLD step with this one , and once again , it is Aamir Khan who has showed the way! He's not only given us a movie that we will be talked about , but has also come to Imran's rescue, and given him a much needed re-launch.

Comparing this one to any of our oldies will be a shame cause this is a Movie in itself and will have its identity for times to come.

Its crude, its wild but its a movie you can watch twice, thrice or any number of times and still laugh and have fun.

:)

Polaris 2011

https://www.facebook.com/polaris2011

Experience the lights, hues and sounds of the most magnificent celebration of senses at Wilson College Mumbai. Polaris 2011 is here with double the fervor and thrill! Exceeding all expectations, the Carnival will come to life for three days in July and serve up a spectacular arena of sight and sound which needs to be seen to be believed! With a potpourri of stunning events, a plethora of colors, extravagant apparel and passion, Polaris 2011 will give students an opportunity to showcase their talent and have the time of their lives at the same time! With more than twenty incredible events lined up to satisfy the creative drive of budding professionals across forty five colleges in Mumbai, the festivities are set to take place on the 15th, 16th and 17th of July and will churn out some dazzling and ingenious talent. As the party and merriment begin, come join the most awaited celebration of the year, brought to you by Wilson B.M.M. only in Polaris 2011. Let the Carnival begin!For sponsorship details, contact:Shenna Albert: 9920952288Janice Rodrigues: 9167156029

People

Life is incomplete without descriptions and stories of people, from around us and from within our lives.
While we move through different phase's of our life we encounter new additions and removals from family. A family that we become as a class. A family that we stick together in name of as we work or achieve.

How exactly are we expected to receive new entries into our own well defined, nicely settled, and acquainted family.
The societies norm is that we should settle for change and make the newbies feel part of the clan. make them feel  like home. not give them a strange nudge, but is that all a person needs to become a part of the family(like seriously).
what for us may be a nice introduction and questioning and sometimes even fun session might look like a kiddish behavior to the ones who have walked in jus then.

We do our job while we go around asking for names and backgrounds of the new comers, but what do they feel about our whole *making them feel part* process is a totally different and here a shocking perspective.
What if all the while u were trying to be all nice n good they felt that they were being treated by small kids like toys who are being scanned so that they can join the big fat toy story*0_0*
May be, may be not!

What backgrounds they come from also shape a lot of ideas don't they?
They dressing up in a certain way also might be give away's to us "Wella"(jobless) people.

How can u decide that a person is not only gay but be so bloody sure of even spreading it around with a typical tone and expression - *Dude he's so Gay ya*.

All this without even knowing his name.

I stand in dilemma after hearing out the other side of the story as for me behaving in a decent and a good way to the new people was no where even close to perceiving them as kids.
It is also strange how all of the many can have a different overview of US...the Class...the family....the class that went from "I to WE" after some adventurous, bumpy rides :P

Life as It moves on

The girl from the Train

It’s not every day that you bump into someone through public transport that you can go ahead and talk to. This wasn’t one of those everyday people you see in the Local train in Mumbai and know them by their Station names and travel times. This was different than any of the stereotypical cases, it was different way beyond expectation and prejudice for me, because I wasn’t someone who belonged here.

This was a ride I generally did not take, it was one of those days when I was lazy and just didn’t mind travelling a mere 2 stations just for a cosy seat and a nice ride back home.

How many times do you sit in a train and are all sorted about how this one ride is going to be? No matter how huge hearted and easy going you might be there is always that saturation point, isn’t there?

That day it had rained, Mumbai is the city that redefines rains for all those who stay through its monsoon. While it were all dirt and gross for me, that day was different.  I was going to meet someone who was to be there for long and long enough to seep into mind, heart and further on…!

I blame it on my hometown for giving me such an approach but since I can’t change the past let me put that day as it happened.

From the corner of the town to small suburb it takes a mere 52 minutes and which is some time you can stand and reach your house where you know you can crash to the awesomness of a hot cup of tea/coffee.

That day didn’t give me my regular coffee as I reached late. It was because of that one girl. A girl who I didn’t speak to for a good whole 40 minutes just because I felt that the guy who was sitting with her was her boyfriend. Well my bad, I should have then this day would be different.

Nonetheless I did pick up courage by the 3^rd last stop to destination. All it took was some good decoding of memory to start a conversation with this perfect round Black eyed girl. (Eyes are what I see first in a person since the eyes are what I stare into all through a conversation).

Metaphor her face to that nursery rhyme that goes something like rosy lips, dimple chin….blah ble blu!

The one energetic face that I remembered from the first 20 days into my college life and the one face I thought were of someone older than me and on a higher position was this one sitting next to me in a totally unexpected ride – The Mumbai Local train! I’d thought that this sweet girl was the leader of the contingent that represented her respective college at our festival.

Sadly she was just a very enthusiastic participant. I was there on the recipient side when she was yelling her lungs off at the fest. All I did was look at the energy that she bought into her group of people. I give like 1/4^th of the winning credit to that energy.

Well to my surprise the same girl was sitting next to me, with one respectfully smiling friend by her side, and her boyfriend just bid, goodbye to her.

How, What , why would I say anything to a completely stranger out of the blue on a train that both of us had taken to head back home, after a tiring day at our respective college?

What were I supposed say not only to start a conversation but also make her reply with the same enthusiasm as me. Well with that one right thing I would get this lady straight to the point and reply with the same energy. It was that magical contingent name. The one word, which made her- rest her throat for 2 days cause of the intensity of the cheering. One hell of a director’s name and I said it not knowing the consequences. All that fit into the above 2 paragraphs up happened within a mere 2 seconds and 3 blinks. 2 words and she came to life all over again.

Speaking as in came to her naturally. Listening came the same way to me and the smiles that were thrown randomly into the air were just there adding to the delight. Delighting the way I’d thought the conversation would have gone. I didn’t lie. I said it like I hadn’t pictured it in my head and I was there spot on. Talking to a girl I knew through one meet at a festival in which I hadn’t even spoken to her at. She was just over with the happiness of the win when I bought it back and when u have positive memories with some event you don’t mind talking about it. Her hard work, her effort was all that she could tell me. Her friend was there smiling off to memories that they had because of something we had organised. Names were not that came first in our conversations. It was moments and images from the fest. Well I thank it for relating to all those from the other colleges around.

That ride wouldn’t have been the jackpot if it weren’t for her also to be getting down at the same stop as me. And yes it were surprising how 2 people doing the same course from 2 well known college and staying in the same bloody area of a city didn’t know each of them existed. Mutual friends existed but that one ride made us realise how small the world were.

I don’t know how to go around the clichéd way so I did ask for phone numbers within a mere 15 minutes. What went through their minds is what I’m unaware of but I did regret that decision later.

Nonetheless I took a detour from my general route just to see off this 15minute friend of mine.  One conversation I remember quite graphically is what happened that day in a very weird and crazy manner. One side of my own small area that I hadn’t been to was where she lived. It was two corners of this place.

Names came in later while the exchange of numbers happened. I’d been a fool in not registering how a very different name that this one had. It wasn’t one of the common ones for me at least. It wasn’t until I asked her to pronounce her name for me was till when I got her name wrong.

 Till date I curse myself for not having that conversation in a better place than a corner of a state highway, by a flower shop, that stood in front of a this place that also sold some nice smelling fried stuff.

The conversation itself will take a large toll cause those 20 to 25 minutes were the largest amount of time I had laughed once I were in Mumbai – a city that never slept, didn’t have time for all lazy souls like me and despite being all that was a place where you could bump into such awesome people. J

.

2010: the year that was

2010 was the most; yes the most enterprising year in the lives of crazy, maniac, mindless geeks. Bespectacled and bemoaned, we the students of grade 12 pushed a donkey’s load of insignificant matter into our rather crumpled and aged old, grey minds.

The dreaded board exams were round the corner to greet us with its uncanny smile, beginning 2010. With answer paper supplement-count running into double digits, and the exam season lingering for a little less than a month; our fingers had almost permanently turned crooked.

Once we waded through that ocean of stress and strain, we discovered an island richly laden with spring flowers and fruit trees. As though we had discovered a grape vine, we were greeted- this time with a welcoming smile- to kindly enjoy the much awaited and much deserved summer vacations.

Lots of fun came our way that summer. Ignoring the blazing afternoon sun and the warm puffs of air beside the seashore, we caught and dodged and frolicked our way through the leisurely months of April, May and June. Of course, this Eden garden joy ended with the declaration of the results which was quickly followed by admission processes.

Running to colleges for form submissions, checking the merit lists the moment they are on display, securing admission, payment of fees, shopping for the new semester, making new friends, messaging the older ones, interacting with teachers and learning new subjects; that’s what we did the following three months.

As time passed and bonds became stronger, we stopped adjusting and started living our new lives at our new college. We got comfortable with the subjects and the projects and the deadlines. We acquainted ourselves to our seniors at college and made friends with them, occasionally hi-5ing them in the canteen. We learned that our stern professors are actually very accommodating; and we learned a lot more.

Now here we are looking back and recounting the good old memories. The memories we made in 2010. This may or may not be the best year in our lives; we may have smiled when we wanted to weep, we may have been hyperactive when we were down and weary, we may have done lots to make people believe that all’s well and we’re actually sick in the mind.

But all in all, 2010 was an eventful year when we did a lot; not always out of choice but mostly out of circumstances.

(P.S. this was meant to be posted earlier, however due to my negligence, I didn't put it up yet)

Peace is Possible

http://www.mattieonline.com/

Please visit

www.threedotdash.org

and then read this piece
(This is something I wrote to Oprah Winfrey about one of my inspirations - Matti J.T Stepanek )


One person can bring about Change
Though being from a country of Gandhi's - I said dude this ain't happening; you randomly don't decide that you will stand for peace and the world will follow? All this jazz until I got to know about this one being call Mattie J.T. Stephanek

Mattie said so& Jeni supported and we followed.

 I've just seen pictures, just heard his voice through videos and read his poems & i wonder what would have happened if we had a face to face conversation. He is a brother to me, the one being  for who i look up to the stars and smile; telling myself that he will be looking at the bloody world change into a better place through his ideas!
I wish i could have been there by his side when he wrote all of those 100 odd poems that inspire me and move me till date. You ask me for a story - I can give u novel ,as that is the impact and the power of the words that came out of his pen.

He's the reason the a stone in D.C has this on it

He wasn't your stereotypical hero and never will be, but for me he is my real life and superficial hero. The park in D.C is on my bucket list and full filling at least one of his desires is  NOW priority.
Love and Peace...-
Since he said It was possible'

I’m the symbol of true love… or am I? - Fazilat Abazer Biviji

My story began in Wilson College!



A keen boy from FYBMM presented me to a snobbish girl from FYBA and proposed to her.



She let down the proposal and flung me away in the air. I landed amidst crow shit!



A little kid was walking past. He noticed me and thought I belonged here among stone flowers. He was naïve to know that the stone flowers were no match for me; as I had one thing that they didn’t… BREATH!



A philosopher was heading towards a venue to give a seminar. He saw me lying among the stone flowers and thought that I should be dedicated to a great man’s commemoratory statue. So he picked me up and left me near this statue at the gate of his venue!



Then the wind blew me away far and wide. Before I realized, I was lying on pebbles of stone. They were hard and they hurt my back. But nobody paid any heed to my suffering.



A poor girl was on her way to visit her ailing friend in the nearby hospital. She thought she would present me to him and wish him speedy recovery.

I sat there on the hospital table while the ailing boy got discharged and left the hospital without taking me along!



A peon in the hospital saw me there and took this opportunity to express his love for a senior lady doctor of that very hospital. He went to her office and slid me in her personal diary.



The lady doctor noticed me after a while. She was ecstatic! She knew who would have taken so much effort to express his heart’s feelings.



She went out to have lunch with her colleague, who (by the way) she thought had proposed to her!

And the two of them, who were never meant to be together, lived happily ever after…………

My Crow Vision - Jay Nikalje

Soon after Delhi-6 was launched many of the youngsters fell in love with Masakkali. It is sign of peace also. However, people say it’s a sign of love in India ever since ‘Kabutar ja ja ja…’ was on lips. Beauty is always loved to see. Or is it that they love and find beauty in it?

Peacock has always been the one people would die to look at. Every eye has a sense of beauty.

My eyes find beauty in a crow.



Have you ever seen any peacock sitting still and calm on the gargoyles of heritage architecture? Have you ever seen a Pigeon swinging near your window when the kitchen smells of chicken? How photogenic it would be!

There are many birds like Kingfisher and Eagles to take in photographs of; but only a crow gives you humanly postures.

My habit developed with a story in which Birbal tells Akbar the exact number of crows in their state. I actually started noticing them and asked myself why didn’t I learn it before? Crows (especially in west regions of India) have developed a habit of noticing humans and behave according to them.

Some of them hang out on beach sides near food stalls, while a group of peer agers and some of the older ones love to stay alone in peace looking at the sunset. Capturing them in the camera is so much fun!

I know very few wildlife and bird photographers but I am a ‘city life bird photographer.’ How cool is that?

Many of the expressions are captured through the lenses but there is nothing like love in them. As PDA has always been an issue for every couple, crows find wires a better option. You might have blamed them when you had antennas for TVs!

They say beauty is in eye of the viewer. I tried to look inside. Crows might have spoiled seats of your bike and roofs of your car too, but at the end of the day, they clean half of the waste that you throw out of the dust bins on roads!

I don’t understand why they are called ugly.

Poor creature, a social worker, a guardian for cuckoo’s children and at the end of all, they are supposedly family ancestors in some traditions. Now this beautiful bird has a lot of importance for me. It’s not even that effortful to search for it.

It would be disrespect for a lover to give a metaphor of this name, because racism says it has to be bad. Maybe hence, it is an abuse to say! I feel happy to say beauty is skin in.

The Girl and the Guitar - Aayush Puthran

There are always some unheard vibrations of a strummed chord. The music touches you in ways unexpected and unrealized. It took me a countless number of steps in the long walk to understand the music played by the girl. And with every further meter I travel, the music from the guitar is rediscovered in my heart.

Being a media student, I often found myself in two extremes; unending conversations and killing silence. Travelling to ordinary places and out of those ordinary places, meeting finicky people, irritating the chaps who are at peace with their work, are all a part of the course. Maybe the hustle bustle of the media life forces me to retract into the peace of silence. The company of which was not something I had discovered before my trip to down south.

The maiden meeting took place when our bus halted outside a small restaurant at the outskirts of Panvel, where they served vada pav, chai, special chai and a glass of milk with half teaspoon coffee powder and a couple of spoons of sugar. Totally unfit for a South Indian to term that drink as “kaapi”. Worse still, to actually call it a “coffee date”!

She had set destinations to visit, while I didn’t have a clue where I was heading. Through the conversation, I realized or maybe just felt that the damsel’s vacation would be much more happening if she visited a few of the million offbeat locations present in the holiday destination. I offered her the idea and she accepted it without a trace of fuss.

Our bus came to its final halt at Madgaon, Goa. Till then our conversation had done enough to relate each other with our respective interests in books, music and movies; and my interest in her eccentric sense of humor!

While one of the tiniest state of the country was busy celebrating its own festive season, the girl was just happy unloading the burden of her past pressure. She was now a graduate and also a qualified professional Chartered Accountant. Only she knew what she would do the next moment. She wasn’t confused, just spontaneous! When she should have been running around for job interviews, she decided to treat herself with the gift of a half month long vacation in Goa.

The place had everything to make the vacation special; from music to dance to beaches to seafood to Fenny!

In those fifteen days, we travelled the length and breadth of the state, living in rented cottages, eating inexpensive and sometimes even free local meals from the Goan houses.

At times, fighting to separate the thorn from the flesh made us look terrible. Nonetheless, the gracious girl at the height of her courtesy, would decline the fish and simply relish curd with rice.

In our entire journey, when the conversations of the day would head towards an encounter with a sweet ending, the girl would play her favourite string instrument.

Most of her guitar notes were not even learnt; as she would constantly look at her book while playing. But she played her music as elegantly as they were ever heard amidst the woods! The melody of her voice was soothing. Unconventional yet touching!

There was something real about her. Something genuine about her words, something about her songs that touched me. In her case, the difference just didn’t lie in the eye of the beholder. The beauty was within her. Uncharacteristically, she was unfussy and unfazed for an early twenty year old girl.

Even when she claimed she was scared, she looked completely relaxed. I wasn’t like her; neither did I wish to be. I just admired the way she went about her life, her cup of coffee, her books, her guitar and her closed relationships. The girl was focused with definite goals, at times ambitious in a way of being blind.

Conversations would fail to stop even when our tired bodies cried for rest. There was a lot to discover in her and a lot to say about myself. As biased as I may seem, I didn’t expect anyone but media students to pay attention to stupid irrelevant stories of mine. Surprisingly, she did!

She spoke about her unending list of crushes and the one break-up of her life, her treasured group of friends, her ambitions, her fears and stories of a few movies that she believed, I was a fool not to have seen. We caught up with magic shows, Goa carnival, water rides and Dolphin sights. The night time were spent rather quietly drowning in her music.

There were times when we didn’t have much to say. And that happened on our way back to Mumbai. Days passed by, seemingly fast. Two weeks of unending travelling, crazy moments and the time with the music, all came to a sudden halt as the driver shut the door of the luggage compartment of the bus. The baggage stuffed with innumerable photographs and memories was locked in. Seated next to her, I dragged myself back home. No promises made and at the height of stupidity, no numbers exchanged!

While my eyes stay fixed on the words I type, my heart is still holding itself with the memory of the girl.

In those two weeks I faced the unusual hustle bustle amidst the surrounding silence and the melody of the guitar. The beauty was to stay. It would stay with me till the time I would discover her.

After all the time we spent together, there was something about her, still unknown. Not just her name, something more secretive, something about the girl and the guitar…!

All That Jazz n All

Dance As Perceived By Me through the Years

Dance has transformed lives, changed many and revolutionized some too. India has never been behind but has always seen the highest variety of dance forms in itself. Some come into the world with it while many just get it from practice or dedication.

I look at this picture and miss my Posing days!

What has taken Names like hip hop, jazz, salsa, rock n roll, Modern art and contemporary used to be just classical or western when I was a kid? Where we have the Jhatak moves still prevalent in our own Bollywood we have not gone very far off from our base. Bharatnatyam and Kuchipudi and Oddissi still stand as base for a lot of dance forms like Sanskrit stands headmaster for all the languages.

Expressions just take another level when they are accompanied with a song

As a kid I might have learnt classical and then got this strange inclination towards western just because the world was moving towards it. Have feet, Will Dance said the SDIPA and I followed. Now just a ‘Baraat’ dancer that I might be left with still would love to get back on stage with some practice someday.

An art can never die and this I believe is very true. That very line makes me go back to putting on my dance shoes (at least in my dreams!).

- Siddharth Aalambayan

                                                      The Lingo Kid

India's Got Talent - The Slumdog Way!

What is ‘marketing'?  To sell your product.  What is ‘good marketing'?  To understand people and sell your product.  Who is a good marketing person? An MBA graduate perhaps. That is probably the most common answer you'll ever get. But is it so? Well I don't think so. Marketing isn't just about the above.

Hawkers have a lot of gimmicks to market their products but none of them are very eye cathing.But sometimes they do manage to trick us into buying things we don't need at all with these gimmicks. This is the oldest trick in the book.

Malabar hill or Hanging Garden as the tourists call it is one of South Mumbai's hotspots. It Is packed with tourists, locals and a whole lot of hawkers. Many tourists purchase a lot of unnecessary things from these hawkers, so there is a lot of interaction between the hawkers and the m,any tourists from all over the world.gs from them. But after you meet Ravi , you may just change your mind about it all. So now you may ask who is Ravi? Well Ravi is a nineteen year old boy a peacock feathers fan vendor for the past fourteen years. You will find a number of peacock feather fan vendors at hanging garden, but there is something Ravi has that none of the other vendors have. And what is that? Well that is talent!

He may not know how to read and write, but he has a gift. Well all of us here in Maharashtra learn three languages according to the education board. But Ravi knows a variety of local as well as foreign languages! A polyglot, he is!

His family is originally from Gujarat. His grandparents had settled down in Mumbai around 60 years back. She used to sell the peacock feather fans first and then it became their family business.Ravi started selling the fans when he was just eight years old, he'd help his grandmother .Due to poverty his family couldn't afford to get him educated. As children in school all of us learn three languages but Ravi has learnt more than ten languages without even going to school! Well the reason for this is his interaction with the foreign tourists. I guess you could say he is a people's person. He can speak Marathi, Gujarati and Hindi along with some other local languages. The foreign languages he speaks includes English, French, Spanish, Russian, German, Mandarin, Japanese and many more. He has been observing these tourists for years and that's how he's managed to pick up so many languages. That's not all, Ravi also knows the currencies of different countries as well as their rates in comparison to the Rupee. All these little observations have not only helped his business but also make him recognized for his talent.

Ravi was just your average hawker and now he has become Hanging Garden's superstar. He has become a you tube star overnight thanks to some travelers who happened to post video's of him that showcased his talent. He has become very popular on You-tube. His video's have over a lac views in just months! Everybody appreciates his talent he is truly India's talent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULVXqYbUEsw&feature=related

- Sandesh Samant

P.s- Video courtesy- www.youtube.com
Picture Courtesy - www.flickr.com(moderator :D)

Somethings Just Don't Leave The Head
My Story Of The - CHANAWALA

As life goes by some memories just never seem to fade away. And some of our childhood memories are still fresh in our head. Even we somehow try to let them pass us but they still manage to crawl their way back into our heads .these memories are everlasting. We have a lot of precious childhood memories in our neighborhood at the playground and many more. Well my childhood memories are very precious to me too!

Memories remain as frames!

I live in South Mumbai. When I was younger I would go to school in the mornings and get back home at one in the afternoon. Then my grandmother would make us take an afternoon nap, and then I'd get up at four thirty in the evening and then go down to play. Those days were just the best, now there's no time to play at all! After we were done playing we'd sit under this big tree and chat about whatever was the latest buzz in school. Those days my parents would give me an allowance of five rupees and those days five rupees was more than enough! I would spend my allowance on chocolates and other little knick knacks but I'd always save a rupee to buy grams from the gram vendor.

I remember him so well, the old man that he was tall, dark and hair like silver wires coming out of his scalp. He'd come to our building everyday with his basket filled with grams. As soon as he'd walk through the gate we'd all gather around him and buy grams. It was so chaotic with all the little children getting hyper over something as simple as grams! What a sight it used to be! There were so many delightful memories shared over those snacks of grams. "Chanawalla Aajoba" as we called him had become a part of our daily routine. But then I don't remember how and when he stopped his trips to our building and it didn't really change anything for us. And then we completely forgot about him.

And then a week ago when I was returning home from college, I walked through my building gates and there I saw a tall dark man with hair like silver. Yes it was "Chanawalla Aajoba". I couldn't believe my eyes; I remember it like it was yesterday all of us gathered around him. All the memories of him just flashed before my eyes. We sat down and had a chat. I asked him what had happened to him over the years. He told me that he underwent an operation in his village and the doctor advised him to rest for four to five years. But he just couldn't sit idle at home and so he wanted to come out and start selling grams in the city again like he always used to , to see the smiles on the little children faces as he handed them paper cones filled with grams.

  

But unlike those days there was no one to buy grams from him. No chaos no noise, just silence and a basket filled to the brim with grams. And as I spoke to him I realized that times have changed and I have grown up now. I felt sorry for " Chanawalla Ajoba" and bought some grams from him a paper cone that used to be just a rupee was now three rupees.
- Sandesh Samant

It's not just about reporting, but is about adding a spice to it

We live in a banana republic which favours the ones who favour themselves and those who know how to (if i can say) kiss some ass.

The first two lines here may show my anger but that’s how the world is and we are proud people in it. Crony capitalism is taking over the country and all we do is stand and stare. Though we might be on a scale length from all grave dangers that can bring down a country but we still are not far. Journalism is a leg in between all of this that connects the body to its functioning of 'moving on'.

As a student studying media and wanting to get into journalism i fear my stand as i believe anything can be bought and sold in this industry and when i enter and write something where will my stand - STAND?

There are words we are made familiar to during the course which ask us to recognize the "who of communication". Well I say here, The who is the people who read the news that interests them and looks like gossip rather than reality. With cricket making more news than Bhagat singh's 100th birthday and media itself being a tool in a scam all we see are loopholes and faults. The editorial page just goes 'flip' by the time the reader realises it existed too. If we were to have TRP ratings in papers then I'm sure the Supplements would make more money than the headlines and any other segments. Well true that it’s a reader's choice as to what he/she wants to read but when we can have media causing upheaval in the same generation then why not use it as a positive and a better tool in this era and let this era be called the one that was actually the Golden period.

 

When Mubarak happened due to the media -Corruption, Poverty and a better country can also happen dude to the media. If the masses are all concentrated to one specific source then it is the media and specifically Journalism. Gate keeping is long forgotten and many other words are just part of journalism text books now.

Let’s dust the dirt off and begin afresh and talk of reality rather than painting it "yellow".

P.s - This is completely a personal opinion, it is not meant to harm any specific person, community or religion.

Art and funk just got merged through Graffitti!

 In the 21st century man has become not only social animal but he also has explored various avenues to express himself . For many ‘ART’ is their second name , be it singing , dancing , painting, or anything under the sun that is abstract .

One cannot categorize this as rebellion , its just a different language . some can relate and some cannot!. The difference is ,Those who cant, wonder . Those who can, admire.
An example of art is Graffiti, it is said to have originated in Italy as inscriptions and drawings on sculptures and walls . In fact , graffiti was found in 1851 in the ruins of Pompeii. Painting on sidewalks , and other forms of graffiti is still common In Rome today. Whereas Romans consider graffiti as a form of urban art , many westerners consider it vandalism unless owners give consent to the graffiti artists.

Bruce Dunn a young lad based in the city of Pune in India says “Graffiti is a language in itself , it has no limits!, and it never will”. He dropped out of graduation and subsequently decided to pursue a diploma in fine arts , at 21 He has established a company by the name of ‘OUTKAST INK’. Initially he started by customizing shoes , gradually word spread and orders flooded in . Shoes , Guitars , Walls , Cafeterias and Pubs too.
He has created a niche for himself ,and all this in the name of ‘ART’ . He plans on taking his art places , and inspite of just operating online(www.outkastink.com) he has managed to gather a huge fan following and clientele .
This is an example of how art has no limits with respect to cast , creed , nationality . Barriers are all in the mind , free thinking can liberate anybody , who knows , your next million might be lying in a paint box in your store room!.

-Abhay Raha

I study in Hogwarts. Really!

Yes yes YES! My college is Hogwarts (mind you, ‘is Hogwarts’ and not ‘like Hogwarts’). Really! As a kid, when I read Harry Potter for the first time, my feet did levitate above reality for a really long time. I hoped beyond hope generally makes you hope, I wanted that one barn owl to tap on my window; that one brown envelope with the Hogwarts seal; that one news which would confirm my admission in the greatest school of wizardry! And of course, schoolmates like Harry, Ron and Hermione; Professor Dumbledore, Prof McGonagall, Hagrid is pretty rad you know! And so I waited, for that one tap…which never came. *sob*

Life moved on and so did I. But funny thing about dreams and desires, they always stay in the back of your mind. So when I saw Wilson College for the first time, that voice in the back of my head gasped, “Hogwarts!” I was here, I had made it!

“Woohoo!! To all those who said Hogwarts was fiction, up yours retards!”

And I scored.

As the days passed by, I was convinced, this is Hogwarts. Only it was a tad more Mugglish than I had expected it to be. But whatever, life is never what you want it to be. Didn’t they tell you that? Here’s a sneak peek into Hogwarts. (So that you can brag it to your friends you know!)

The Great walls of Hogwarts aka Wilson

This was clicked by a fellow classmate. But damn! It captures the whole magical essence so well!

The Corridor

There has to be an owlery here somewhere...

 
The Great Sea (instead of the lake!)

I have heard them talk about the merpeople that lives in the middle of the sea in hushed tones! The fisherpeople roam around openly and so does the 'cou'ple :D

The Moving Staircase

The only difference from the book is that, this staircase doesn't move. But otherwise it functions pretty well you see.

Our Dumbledore

Prof. Sudhakar Solomon Raj! He needed a muggle disguise to survive in this world, duh!

This is what he looks like now. He keeps up with the times pretty well!

There is many more secrets about my magical wonderland! But some things have to be kept a secret nay?

P.s.:: The following post might have been a little too unreal for the most of you. Well, in my defense, I'm a tad unreal myself and so is BMM. And anyway, reality plays ping-pong with me almost every day of my life. Even the sea kisses the sky at a faraway point, why the heck can't I be unreal then?! Play along, will you?


Image Courtesy: The Awesomely Talented Students of Wilson BMM™
P.P.S: I don't exaggerate.