Deadly Lifesavers.

By: Thejas on 7:32 PM

Aaah! Deadlines..! Don't you just love to hate them. What will happens to us if there were no deadlines! I had a very different outlook towards deadlines until recently, but its only when you sit idle for a month that you actually realize the importance of these unforgiving creatures.



 For a moment , lets consider the word "Dead-Line". "DEAD" "LINE". They could have just said completion date or finish date but NO. It has to be deadline. That is how important it is. If you cross that line, you might as well hope that you were dead instead! May be that is why,Tom Robbins, the author of Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas  said “Are you aware that rushing toward a goal is a sublimated death wish? It's no coincidence we call them 'deadlines.” 

People have this very bad notion about deadlines. It wouldn't let me sleep, it gets closer and closer each moment, I cant even breath! Panic Panic Panic. Our whole lives are structured around submission dates, presentation dates, project completion date, review date, hell, even anniversaries and birthdays!



But the truth is that deadlines give you hope. It gives u stability in an otherwise chaotic existence. Without them , you have absolutely nothing to look forward to. You sit and think, "what do I have that is going to screw me over this week", you find an answer and you cry over it. But what if you have nothing in your schedule. Your to-do list look like the horizon, expanding to infinity. Your yesterdays and todays and tomorrows merge into one! Days have no meaning, weeks pass, months pass and you sit there wondering whether its a sunday or august!  

Man wants order, so the sight of a deadline calms you down. I've got to survive for atleast till  that date and then you encounter the next deadline and so on. Something always draws us to stability , to reason.May be that is the reason why the only thing that I admire about children is their ability to do unreasonable things with the greatest determination. 

"Son, where are you going with my phone?" 
"To the bathroom..." 
"why?" 
"to flush the phone  down the toilet" 
Their inherent sense of duty takes precedence over the need for  rational things or for them to be in order, I wish adults could do the same sometimes.



Coming back to deadlines, deadline just gives you solace, nothing more. Its not that deadline inspires you to do something. Its like standing before a speeding car. "Oh I see a car coming towards me" "its big" "I think It will slow down" "Its getting closer and closer" "I think I should move out of its way" and then BANG, it hits you. And you get up crawling, living to fight another deadline.



So do all things have a deadline, a subtle invisible deadline? Do Dreams have a deadline? We often hear  people say "when I was young, I wanted to do *something*. But now I'm too old" I guess dreams do have a certain expiration time, after which no matter how hard you try, it fails to materialize. Everyone carries with them a bundle of expired deadlines,  those which no-one knows expect him and him alone.

Ultimately, all work needs inspiration and I agree deadlines are pretty de-motivational, but they are still better than absolutely no inspiration!!

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Surviving the Social Jungle.

By: Thejas on 6:48 PM

Man is a social animal, A Social media animal now, but none the less social. So, we have to adhere to the rules put forth by the so called "society".

All this begs to question what exactly do make up a society? Quite simply put Society is a group of quintessential acquaintances that you have met once in your whole lifetime,probably at a wedding of your third cousin's best friends sister-in-law or similar and a majority others whose only means of enjoyment is judging absolute strangers. 

But many a times we all have been part of this vicious circle of JUDGEMENT and even more times blatantly  have fallen victim to this social torment.

 The main issue with judging a person comes from the fact that you are never happy with the person. If he is studious then he's a bore, if he is not then he is good for nothing. If he has a beard he is a terrorist , if he is clean shaved he is not mature. If he is skinny he is anorexic , if he is chubby he is a loser. If he active he is fake, if he is silent he is rude. If he hangs out with girls he is a stud , if she hangs out with guys she is a slut. If he is religious, he is wasting his life, if he is an atheist  he will burn in hell. If he's fair he is a foreigner , if he is dark he is a negro,hell, most of the people dont even eat the first bread in the packet just because it is UGLY! So as you may have quite intelligently summarized, there is no way out of this oxymoronic  society that is slowly becoming less oxy more moronic as the days pass.



But no matter how demented it may seem, We have to live with it, live in it and live as it. So rather than crying , lamenting and scowling over the dreadful condition of our society, we have to learn to manipulate and quite sustainably co-exist with it because our success rides on our ability to form and maintain communities.


Hence, I give you, the wisdom that I have derived from the depths of my own mental prowess, even though I have not mastered any of these, these are the things that I eventually hope to achieve. Eventually, No big rush. :)

(P.S. This is not meant to be any self-help-bullshit. Just things that I've learned from hard earned experiences and of-course from movies)

# Acceptance

Accept who you truly are.Not the person who you project in public but your true identity, the inner Bruce Wayne, because until and unless you totally accept who you are, you cannot expect others to accept you [yes, this is what Magneto says to Mystique in XMEN: First Class, but I hooked up the reference, that is what counts].

One fine day, stop fighting these internal wars and admit "yes, I'm a fat,condescending , narcissistic , sarcastic moron who hates babies and still watches cartoon!!"[All descriptions here are of fictitious characters. Any resemblance to anyone living, alive or sitting behind a laptop is purely unintentional and deeply regretted.] Then you'll start realizing that the world aint so bad place after all. You'll feel a breeze of fresh air with  slight background scores.



Best thing about this is that now mockery doesn't work . If somebody calls you fat and asks with a smirk "Does obesity run in your family.", you just smile calmly and reply "No, apparently nothing "RUNS" in my family!"
Once you  join in making fun of yourself, the other party looses it interest, And You win quite fashionably!.

#Projection

Like Alfred so beautifully puts it in Batman Begins, "You start pretending to have fun, you might even have a little by accident." You can be anybody you want, all you've got to do is pretend.  Project a happier , more confident you  and voila that is what you become eventually! But go slow initially, Don't go all "I'm the king of the world" on the first day itself and then proceed to be the like the climax of the movie[Titanic, if it wasn't already obvious.]. IF It is played subtly , it remains the best way to fool the society into thinking that you are of some social importance.

#Goals

You need to have goals because projection can only take you so far. AND Not just any goals. Tangible, achievable, possible and measurable goals[kudos to Simon Sinek].

Martin Luther King didn't say "I want freedom for all", he said "I have a dream that one day black children and white children will join hands and play in this very play ground" and it struck the people because they could  all visualize this.   "I Want to be Rich" is not a goal, its merely an opinion. 

So is I want to be slim or I want to play guitar. Your Goals needs to be as detailed as the Kasturirangan report. I want to learn to play at least 3 verses of "Nothing else matters" on guitar by next week. Now that is a goal.

Modi had a deep rooted goal and worked for it. Rahul thought he might just get through because of his last name. And as they say rest is history.

#Silence

Manmohan Singh did not introduce the phrase "Silence is golden" , even though he personifies every element of it. But invariably , Silence is the best way to get out of many social bottle necks. 

When your mom says, "Now that you've finished Engineering, I really think you should have taken biology in your 11th standard then written the medical entrance, then repeated because you don't have a chance in the first attempt, and then appeared for medical again and got into AFMC just like Anu aunty's third niece.", you just have to think "dinner. Dinner. DINNER!" and remain silent  and quietly walk away from the room. Silence stops you from saying all those things that you will definitely regret in the future.

 You can also employ mild sarcasm[what we been doing here], but only if you are good at it.Sarcasm is the way of insulting idiots without them realizing and once you a get a hang of it, its all the drugs you need. So next time somebody asks,"why don't you get into IIM-Ahmedabad, I heard its a good college." ask "Really, I did not know that :| ".

#Family

This is the most important part of survival. Every body gives you sticks and stones , even your family but the important thing  here is that even when the society tears you to pieces it mostly only your family that helps you to pickup the pieces  But more importantly, they pay for your WiFi and feed you, and you've got to admit , there is no true love than that!

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Media, Savvy?

By: Thejas on 6:54 PM

I'm sure that everyone has written at least one essay on the topic "The Importance Of Media in molding the future of the nation" at school and proving all of then right Narendra Modi unleashed his wave to reign superior over our nation . The Man squeezed the life out of all media be it print , televised,  or social and manipulated them to portray him as the last ray of hope for India, The Knight in shining Armour, "Gotham's White Knight" (I hope Mr.Nolan will forgive me for this!).

And it worked superlatively! All his competition were sunk to depths of the ocean as he emerged as a roaring lion and nobody could complain because it was all strictly speaking legal!



So assuming the media is so powerful , I thought of investigating it in a very superficial yet uncompromising manner. And I have found that it is full of misrepresentations  Now I have already shared the media's ideology about women in a previous article but there are still many more .

 I remember Kangana Renaut saying at an interview that "Its only because there are no good roles being written for women, that there are far  less iconic female characters in the Indian Film industry" ( and after QUEEN,  I'm pretty much ready to accept what ever she has to say.). Lets Just look at few of the misrepresented communities :

1. Kids[0-13]

I personally am not a big fan of kids but that doesn't mean I'm going to keep quiet when they are being wrongly depicted in the media. Now kids have always been a big part of movies and I'm drawing references from movies like Bhootnath, Phillips and the monkey pen and the numerous ads that we have to sit through everyday. 


First of all Kids DO NOT fall in love like Richard Gere and Julia Roberts  and  dance around the mustard fields singing Love duets(I'm not saying Rich and Julia do a DDLJ, but you get where I'm going this) . 
Trust me, I myself was a kid for about 13 years, so speaking from experience, kids have a instinctive dislike for the members of the other sex. Nor do kids gang-up on their enemies to shove a sharp pencil into his ass just because he was insulted before his girlfriend(ya, right). That never happens because kids have a higher code of  morality than adults and their anger is pretty instantaneous. 

And from the advertisement's point of view, All kids want to do is get their shorts dirty and drink COMPLAN !Really? Think people, think.

2.LGBT

 The lesbian Gay Bisexual Tran-sexual community's presence is almost non-existent in the Indian media and what ever small exposure they have in the movies, they end up being caricatures and  take up the center stage for mockery and insensitive humor. 

In a country where even porn stars are in limelight ,you never see a member of LGBT advertising Soap or washing powder, why? They are also perfectly sane human beings who bath and wash everyday but no ad company is bold enough to break the social conscience . That is the reason why I have utmost respect Shyam Benagal's Welcome to Sajjanpur for giving a respectable role to a hijda, not just as a clapping dancing eunuch but as someone of social importance. 

3.American Media

Americans don't rule the world. They just think they do. But with all the soft power from McDonalds, KFC, Apple, Wallmart and others they pretty much single handedly control the world economy. But we have to admit ,their media is biased as shit! Especially about the Middle east. 


Every time the american channels show middle east, it full of desserts,oil,terrorist and explosions. They never show like two regular guys having coffee or something. Its like everything after Saudi has to explode! There are normal people there who wake up everyday, eat and drink, curse their job, lie to their spouse and go back to their bed, Just standard-Normally-Average people. People dont go "I dont know what to do today,habibi, I think I'll just blow up a plane or some thing!!".

Their version of India is also pretty damn biased. Majority of the american  travel documentaries show all of India as this poverty stricken slums of  Dharavi with small almost negro looking kids running around butt-nude midst piles of heaps of hills of garbage. Yes, poverty is a big truth that we have to accept, but still India has a lot to offer from stunning backwaters of Kerala to breath taking Rohtang Pass(trying not to sound like a travel agent here). And All you See is poverty?? If Gandhi ji were alive today, he would've probably modified his ever-so-famous quote as " The real india lives in villages but here other beautiful things to see also ,you dumb morons!!".

4.The Indian Serials

I give you the King of misrepresentations. From women who wear full-fledged jewelry 24x7 to men who wear 3 piece suits whilst sleeping, all of the desi serial are nothing short of caricatures. But these serials are feminist none the less, because considering the 20 year average running time of a serial , all the men have a combined screen time of less than 30 minutes. Its all women power! 


All serials have a core story which lasts twelve days and then they fill shit, crap and garbage for the next 19 years and 353 days.I really think many of these serials don't even have directors, the actors just show up and say whatever they want on camera and leave. But on the brighter side, you don't have to worry even if have missed six months of a show, because the story remains the bloody same.

These are just some of the misrepresentations that I've noticed  and I'm sure there are very many more. But we have to live with it, we have been for so many years now. 

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The Easy Way To Enlightment

By: Thejas on 11:25 PM

This is not a movie review. I did go for for a movie today, the Manju Warrier comeback block buster "HOW OLD ARE YOU",  which was okay-okay and kudos to her but I'm not going to talk about that.


Today a great knowledge dawned upon me while I was sitting in the bus, A realization so big that it had the potential to change the course of this ENTIRE UNIVERSE. Okay may be NOT as big but still it is kind of huge.


Let me first tell you the premise of this discovery. My phone's audio jack gets shorted due to water => head phones not working , but I do have a Auxiliary phone to listen to music for such catastrophic situation but unfortunately my auxiliary phone also got  toasted and I didnt have an auxiliary for my auxiliary phone which leaves me sitting without listening music on a bus, after a bloody long time. I was starting to get slightly bored but then it hit me. People have lost their ability to sit idly doing absolutely nothing!!



Idle Sitting used to be a major part in everybody's life. All those train rides , bus rides, waiting rooms, and millions of other places where everyone had to wait for innumerable hours doing absolutely nothing. It used to be a great tradition in village offices and government establishment where people waited for hours and hours till the last trace of patience gets sublimated away only to hear " Come back tomorrow, I'll see what I can do!".


But what we see right now is people totally engrossed in their cellular world,be it music, whatsapp , wechat( we have consider the perverts also), gaming or the slightly older generation desperately trying to figure out how this smartphone-shit works. Every single one. From the wealthy business man looking guy with a 50 inch TV for a phone to the rajasthani-bihari-bengali (who can know for sure) guy with the super annoying -REALLY-LOUD china phone.

I really think People should take time out to do nothing. Not reading paper. Not checking messages. Just Nothing. Rien. Nada. Nichts!

 And if possible take a minute to think about the important things in life. Do I really need the expensive  Kellogg's Special K "fat free" corn Flakes? I mean they are fucking cornflakes. How much fucking fat do they really have. Why Do I Love Narendra Modi, I have no clue who the guy really is.  Arent All Salman Bhai films exactly the same, he doesnt even change his costume. And the array of following inevitable everyday life questions.

 And its only when you start asking these basic questions that your mind will de-clutter itself and all the truths of life will slowly come to you. What do you think Swami Vivekanda was doing all alone on that rock? I agree ,Not exactly this, but probably something close.


So keep your mobile phones aside and aim for enlightment!

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The Woman Folk

By: Thejas on 12:58 PM

This is not my article, but when I read it, I just couldnt move on without sharing this. a Big Kudos to HeartRanjan for this:

There is only one good thing about the IPL.

Actually, make that two.

You get to see Preity Zinta.
Some of the best ads of the year are out in this season.

There isn’t much I can say about Preity Zinta, but I can surely talk about the ads. From the iconic Zoozoos, to the hilarious Manoranjan ka Baap campaign, the IPL season is bonanza time for advertisers, copywriters, and marketers.

But watch the ads on a daily basis, and like Bishan Singh Bedi on acid, you begin to see patterns. Large, swirling patterns that pop out of the TV screen and come dancing in front of your eyes, like a prop on a Tim Burton movie.

You realise that there is no real fresh thinking when it comes to representation of people.



Now, before you begin to accuse me of being judgemental, let me tell you that I am not being maniacal about it. Having worked for a few years as a Copywriter, this is certainly not the first time I am talking about ads (subtly plug in video of a Stand-Up act here).

I understand that there is a line between representation and stereotyping. That as an advertiser, you have a very limited time to sell your wares, and you have to use an image that carries across your point in the most effective way, in the quickest time possible.

Meaning, clichés.

Used images. Now, if I showed a sardar singing Thyagaraja keertanas, it might merely confuse the watcher. And so we resort to images that most draw a likeliness to what they’re likely to see.

I understand all of that.

Only, after a point, it gets too stifling.



And among all the representations in Indian advertising, if there’s one that truly makes me want to pull my hair out in frustration, it is how women are shown.

According to the 2011 census, 48.28% of the country are women. Which comes to 614.4 million people. And yet, the Indian advertising sector, intuitive, dynamic, and whacky as they project themselves to be, choose three major ways of depicting women in advertising.

The three major categories are:

• The Unattainable Indian Woman
• The Slutty Indian Woman
• The Caring Indian Woman

[Readers might note that I am not including the women who want to get fair. I think by now we all agree that ALL women in our country want to get fair, and that is the only way to get successful in life.]



The Unattainable Indian Woman
The Unattainable Indian Woman is placed on an altar. An altar that is higher than the rest of us (meaning, male). We need to aspire for her. Everything we consume – from toothpastes, to motorcycles, to hair gels, to cement – are all different means to attain the Unattainable Indian woman.

And as a result, every single ad you watch, will somehow be related to impressing a woman.

Want a new toothpaste? Here, use Close Up. Who knows when you might get a chance to blow some air into a girl’s mouth? Want a motorcycle, here take Bajaj Pulsar. It is definitely male, and as soon as you buy it, a woman will drop down from the sky, remove her saree, put on a short skirt, get behind you, and pout at the camera.

And on and on it goes, till it reaches an absurd level.

The Slutty Indian Woman
The second category of women shown on Indian advertisements are the loose-charactered sort. The sort that would make Baba Ramdev shut his right eye because the very sight of such ashleelata could curse a man, resulting in him being born as an armadillo in the next birth.

The Slutty Indian Woman has only one maqsad in life – to be slutty.

And so, whether she’s married, has a boyfriend, or even a child – don’t matter. If you use the right product, she will fling away the moh-maayas of the world that are holding her back, and run towards you.

Also, it must be noted that the Slutty Indian Woman will not just smile at you. She’s slutty, remember? She will bite her lower lip, run her hands through her hair, close her eyes, and breathe deeply. And then she’ll slowly slide her hand into your shirt.

All because you bought that hair gel for 12 rupees.

The Caring Indian Woman
This is the most common, and quite naturally, the most frustrating sort of Indian woman that one gets to see in our badvertisements.

This Caring Indian Woman wants nothing in her life. She is happy washing the children’s clothes (boy’s obviously! The girl is braiding Barbie’s hair, while the boy gets dirty in the mud outside). But don’t you worry, kiddo.

Magic Mommy will bring out the greatest detergent invented since Michael Jackson’s dermatologist and bleach it clean, till it reflects light off the sun, so much that the neighbours experience a solar eclipse.

And the Caring Indian Woman cares for everybody. Husband returns from work, must be tired. Let me stir something up for him!

A nice fruit juice that has all the minerals and nutrients required to pass a green light through his body and have him spring back to his feet, perhaps? Or may be a chai that has been made from the best tea leaves (picked by Caring Indian Women in Assam), so that he can go from Kamaal Rashid Khan to Salman Dabbang Khan in a matter of seconds.

And what about meals!

Oh God! What is a Caring Indian Woman if she doesn’t cook meals? So when the husband decides to invite his (male) friends over for lunch, Wifey will use the best oils, the catchiest masala, in the best possible utensils, and serve it out for all to see. Even Aishwarya Rai who has done many more films and enjoys a far superior career than her snail of a husband, will coyly point out to you that she uses Pigeon appliances to keep their love-nest happy.

So that the husband can gloat over his wonderful wife, while the guy next to him curses his wife for not being up to the mark.

Doesn’t it make you want to puke?



Which is why, the recent string of ads by Havells had me impressed.

For delivering a tight slap to the women who take great pride in cooking for the entire family.

Women in rural India probably work harder than their male counterparts – helping out in the fields AND cooking at home. Women in urban India (especially the kind of families you are targeting) work too. And even if they don’t, there are other things on their mind than cooking wholesome meals for the entire fucking mohalla!

Women go to offices too, you tequila-shooting, goatee-wearing morons. When will you ever learn?

And that is why, the new series of ads by Havells kicks ass! Enjoy!

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