Aamir Khan is NOT a pretentious prick

Aamir Khan has apologized for hurting people’s sentiments with PK. Is that something you would expect a pretentious prick to do? No. Only a cynical person would say that perhaps he finally watched his own film. Completely. Properly. An ever more cynical person would say that now that he’s done earning all the crores, he milking it for some more. Is there no room for non-cynical thought in today’s world? Pretentious prick it seems!

Aamir Khan is a publicity hound they say. But is it really his fault that the media report on what colour underwear he’s wearing today? Fault him for wearing underwear, if you will. But then so do you. Does that make you a pretentious prick? No sir.

Do you know Aamir Khan became vegan today? That means no meat, not even dairy products. He drinks his tea now with soy milk. Do you know what ultimateness level of sacrifice this is? On a level of 1-to-Sonia Gandhi, that’s like a 12. And you dare call Aamir Khan a pretentious prick? I dare you to drink tea with soy milk. I double dare you.

Despite what nature has done to him, Aamir Khan still loves nature. And you? You who call him a pretentious prick, insult a garden lizard. How do you know what the IQ of a garden lizard is? Who’s a pretentious prick now?

And you know what? Aamir Khan – who you call a pretentious prick – watches a documentary about the advantages of becoming vegan and the perils and ill-effects of meat eating etc and internalized it so much he became a vegan. Aamir Khan is much too humble to say this, but I can bet you that if Mr. Perfectionist watches a well-made documentary about polluting power plants and internalized the imperative for renewable energy, he would become an eco-friendly windmill. If he chose to that is.

On a side note, Chethan Bhagat is not the Rakhi Sawant of Indian literature. He is the Charles Dickens of India. You obviously haven’t heard of rediff.com where the anointment happened. So please stop your hectoring and cloaking your ignorance in what passes for supposedly funny. If you want to be funny, call Rakhi Sawant the Chethan Bhagat of Indian filmdom.

Do you know who invented dyslexia in India? Aamir Khan! With Like Stars on Earth (IMDB rating 8.5).

Do you know what’s the only reason Narmada Bachao Andolan is brought up today? Aamir Khan! He bachao-d the Narmada Bachao Andolan.
Do you know Aamir Khan has the same number of English Premier League medals as Steven Gerrard? Of course not! That’s because Aamir Khan is humble. He does not trumpet his achievements. That makes him – and I say this again – humble. Not a pretentious prick as you call him, or rather want him to be.

I could go on, but if you haven’t realized the unfairness and injustice in calling Aamir Khan a pretentious prick by now, you never will.

In fact, you know what? You should be thankful to Aamir Khan. For keeping his halo switched off at all times. Else you would be burnt, like Kamadeva burnt by Shiva’s third eye. Is such thoughtfulness a trait of someone who is supposedly a pretentious prick? Huh? Huh?

So stop it with all the name calling. And being judgmental. You are just jealous that you cannot be like Aamir Khan. You cannot be, no matter how hard you try. Especially if you are above 5’6” in height.

Remember this. Pretentiousness is a state. Of mind. Like poverty. Aamir Khan lives in Maharashtra.



EDIT: in case you've not read the original blog post that said that Aamir Khan is such a pretentious prick: https://heartranjan.wordpress.com/2015/02/19/why-is-aamir-khan-such-a-pretentious-prick/

Being called ‘Hitler’ is perhaps the best compliment a leader could get in India today

No one will admit it in public. It’s a question of political correctness after all. How can you forget the gas chambers??? But then in an era of fleeting superficiality and skin deep strong beliefs, that’s a just a minor detail to be ignored. That’s where people come from when Hitler comparisons are denied in public. But the truth lies between this show of political correctness and the ground realities. Because if Rahul Gandhi does persist in comparing Modi to Hitler, it could prove to be unproductive to the extent of making people see Modi in a new, positive light. Yes, Positive. Because when you look at the big picture, Hitler in India isn’t a hate figure, a demonised person, a villain. Actually the truth is just the opposite. And here’s why I think so.

 

To put things in context look at the situation prevailing in India today. Lack of a strong leadership, and an Indian’s search for the same. A rising sense of (misplaced) nationalism, jingoistic in its nature. It is exactly here that Hitler, in the opinion of many people, scores, especially youngsters. And that’s all people know, or want to know. Here was a man who loved his country, a patriot, a strong leader who made his nation strong again. A disciplined man with leadership qualities to be admired.

 

And we Indians have always been prone to ‘hero worship’ be it sportsmen or politicians, and especially of military leaders. And Hitler fits all these very many moulds quite nicely. And the little matter of the belief that Hitler was a man who solved problems, and just got things done. A man who brought order to chaos, who replaced shame & anger with pride. Just this much is reason enough. But wait, there’s more.

All that above is just the state-of-play today. But what of yesterday? How does our past history affect how we perceive Hitler today?

 

Again, our history once again reinforces the fact that Hitler was a good man. It’s a fact that today’s youth hero worships Bhagat Singh and Subhas Chandra Bose more than MK Gandhi. And remember, it was Hitler to whom Netaji turned to in the fight for Indian Independence. That makes Hitler India’s friend, even if it is – as it was – because he was the ‘enemy’s enemy’. So if Netaji admired Hitler, he can’t be all that bad. Many people still haven’t forgiven Gandhi for siding with the oppressor, Britain during the wars. For people who’ve read Indian history or rather know of all the theories and little trickles that went into making the larger whole, there is a strong and persistent view that had Hitler not weakened the British Empire through WW2, the British would have never voluntarily left India. This view finds its logical end in posts and books that proclaim that Hitler, not Gandhi, should be given credit for the independence of India. As an aside, when you have the time, also look up Savitri Devi, popularly known as Hitler’s priestess and how Hitler was for a while considered an avatar of Vishnu.

 

Back to the present and thousands of copies of Mein Kampf get sold every month at bookstores across the country. At last count there were at least a dozen editions that I know of, and there’s a new one every few months. It’s still a best seller in India. How would you account for this? The book’s literary merit? No. It is a rambling book, and a difficult read. I don’t think all those thousands of people who bought the book have ever finished the book. They only bought it not so much because they wanted to know more about Hitler but more as a token of their love for the man.

I could go on. About the restaurants that bear Hitler’s name. About how the whole ‘Hitler was racist’ doesn’t cut ice in private here, in India where we are as rascist as they come. About the movie(s) on Hitler. But as with the rest of the post, I will keep it brief and just enough to give you an idea of why I think that if someone is compared to Hitler, it may work in his favour. Why Adolf Hitler for all that he may be to the western world isn’t in India (necessarily) an evil man – but a hero, a role model, political correctness notwithstanding. I hope I’ve made enough sense to give you some food for thought.

Why are military hotels called ‘Military Hotels’?

Military Hotel. You know, the places where you get all the Ragi Mudde and Chops. The donne biryanis and spare parts. Basically and almost exclusively non veg fare is what defines a Military Hotel, or Miltry Hotel as people call them. Actually the full and proper nomenclature is ‘Hindu Military Hotel’. But what’s with the military connection? I’ve had a lot of people ask me that, and am putting it down here so next time I can just mail a link to this post instead of subjecting them to my voice and wild gesticulations.

 

Now all this here below is what I’ve learned from my uncle and corroborated by relatives and a few people of the previous generation. That’s the only citation you’ll ever get if you ask. If you have heard of an alternative explanation or anything to add on, I would love to hear it. Anyways.

 

One logical explanation I’ve seen do the rounds is that they’re called Military Hotels because they’re run by ex-servicemen. Logical, plausible, but not quite right. The actual reason, as I’ve been told, is that back in the ye olde days, and I’m talking about the early post-independence years and up to the early 60s, the only non-vegetarian hotels and messes existing had cooks who were non-Hindu, mostly Muslim. So Hindus who were from non-vegetarian households would eat at home. But when it came to eating out, it was more or less a non-option for reasons stated above. This was a problem compounded for Hindus who were supposedly (or rather born) vegetarian but had acquired a taste for non-veg, because without the option of eating out they had to make do only with the occasional invitation to a friend’s house or say, a stray beegra oota. Remember also, these were times when towns were smaller than they are now and everyone more or less knew everybody else and his family.

 

Enter the military hotels to fill this gap for both kinds of people. Any hotel that called itself a Hindu Military Hotel (to use the complete & original terminology; though the word ‘Hindu’ has since been become redundant due to association of one with the other and due to changing times) was clearly suggesting, nay announcing three things:
• That it is a non-vegetarian hotel
• That the cooks are Hindus, and…
• No beef.

 

But still, why ‘Military’? Apparently the general perception amongst the people at that time was that everyone in the forces, the military HAD to eat non-veg irrespective of who he was or what his background and choice of food was. So ostensibly many of these places popped up to cater to the non-vegetarian food needs of soldiers on leave and ex-servicemen who had to have their meat but who couldn’t cook at home, or eat at hotels with non-Hindu cooks. Yep. It’s quite as simple as that. But the reasons are not so simple, but sort of make sense once you keep in mind the social mores of the time that food joints started calling themselves ‘Military Hotels’.

 

So there you go. Enough food for thought I guess, for now. Bon appetite!!

Love, love everywhere, but not a Lover to love - The Auto Raja special

A collection of some of the finest love advice and aphorisms from Bangalore’s very own Love Gurus.

 

Love cannot be seen it is true [but] Lover can you not see [?]
[Once] Love is found, Lover [also] will you not get [?]

 

udigiru love andre

nail polish thara thilkondire
udugaru love andre
pranakintha echgi thilkonthare
=
(If) girls think of love as nail polish *wah wah*
boys value love more than life itself

 

Shi So Beutiful

But
I Don’t Like It

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The charms of modern girls’ luck-u…
…can change a boy’s destiny (and come unstuck-u)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

from mother….LIFE
from lover….DEATH

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Waste it [a rose] not on the hair of a girl who knows not the value of love,
Use it instead to adorn the tomb of the boy who gave their life for love…..
….GULABI !!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

if you don’t get what you love; love what you get’
but a true, more correct literal translation in English would be:
Rather than being a slave to the one you choose,
Be the king and rule over the heart that chose you

 

 

 

 

To never see you again, my heart into stone I turned,
Now that the stone hath become a rock in the end
From which I could sculpt your beauteous visage I see within,
How can forget you oh my beloved, my friend?! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and finally a (dis)honourable mention....

 

Laal Khopdi strikes again!

It all started with a conversation on the office balcony. 2 lasses, a laddy and me (yep, Mallika, Pooja and Khanna, I am referring to you - didn't think you guys would the spark behind such horror did ya?). Next thing you know we are talking about Shaitaani Tantrik, Khooni Dracula, Chudail No.1 and other such z-grade horror flicks, nay true blue Indian exploitation classics from such great luminaries as Kanti Shah, Purushottam, Harinam Singh et al (many thanks to the one and wonly Bhagat Productions for some awesome movies). A chai later I remembered that there have been some slasher movies that have been cut up (no pun intended) into music videos for firang metal songs. Are these Indian classics any less? Don’t they deserve a video of their own? Of course they do. And it has to be an Indian band, an Indian song. That will do do justice to Indian horror flicks being sliced and diced (pun intended).

Cut to Coffee House. Enter fellow metal fan and walking music encyclopedia Gautham Khandigey also known as GK also known as Soul Reefer. A quick brief later and my mission stated, Dying Embrace’s Grotesque entity was inboxed with due alacrity. 2 sleepless nights, many coffees and watching many old favourites later, emerged this:

Fly, You Fools!

I know. Well...it's been a while since The Bekku was updated. Here. From blogging to micro-blogging, from writing to jotting and musing, blogger to twit....has been the scene. Click here for lotsa latest thoughts The Bekku has been thinking recently.

Lots of posts have died at the synaptic link due to sheer laziness, uber-procrastination and mostly the unwillingness to spend more time than is required online. Contrary to popular perception most of my reading is reading pages of dead-tree paper not pixels on the screen. They would anyways have been rants with no worth whatsoever. And a stray post or two about Megan Fox. And science fiction. And Indian politics. Megan Fox. Traditions. The Bekku on The Bekku. Cooking. Thought on Copenhagen the quantum-mechanics talkathon play not the Danish capital. About how you needn’t be funny yourself, but if you forward enough jokes everyday, you will be considered funny. You get the drift. But hopefully there’s a nice one coming soon about Jaron Lanier’s book and why it is a lost cause if at all.

Anyways, in other newses, stumbled on this today: an Indian webcomic!! See how les I know the online world. Saw it today wonly. Some good laughs here. For starters. The ephemeral quintessentially Indian ethos is nicely captured. Have a look at one on The Bekku, selected specially for your viewing pleasure:

For more great Fly, You Fools! comics, click on the Savita Bhabhi Obit pic below. Each click will be considered a silent prayer to bringing our favourite fictional Babhi back.
All pix courtesy Fly, you fools.

Idiots in a global village

I remember an ad that came out slightly after the Columbine High School shootings. About the myopic measures that it led to with regard to gun control laws. It said something to the effect of “Kid in trench coat comes in to his school, uses semi-automatics and shotguns and kills children. What did we do? Ban trench coats.”

The Australian Government is up to something similar. Indians, students in particular, get beaten, mugged, attacked, victimised. Instead of doing something about the crime, and cracking down on the criminals and admitting that it’s as racist as anything goes, Oz is instead implementing laws that make it tougher for Indian students to get into Australia. By asking for higher IELTS scores and planning on making prospective students showing/having sufficient funds to see them through their study time without having to work. Instead of taking action and ensuring that Indians are protected, they’re preventing them from coming. And our government isn’t helping the cause either. By pussyfooting around the issue and just about grumbling enough to count as a ‘reaction’. What can one really expect from a government that has twits like our esteemed Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor who publicly declares that the attacks on Indian students is purely a domestic issue and there’s nothing India can do about it. When I say twit here I mean it in the sense of someone thoroughly contemptible, not one who twitters (with his foot in his mouth, like the twit mentioned above). Idiots I tell you.

In other news, France wants to ban the burqa. On purely secular grounds. ‘secular’ as it is understood in France, not India. Else it might be taken that Sarkozy is anti-hindu. That’s the thing that should be with ‘secularism’. Not anti anybody or pro anything. Anyways, Sarkozy makes the claim and suddenly the world is up in arms against it. The way a woman dresses and what she chooses to wear should not be dictated by the state. Or anything personal for that matter. I spotted one of the useful idiots of the great Indian intellectual landscape, a lady on not one but two different channels. From being a ‘media person’ on one channel she morphed into a ‘social activist’ on the other. Now this lady is supposedly the face of modern “liberal” Islam. Bleh! Amidst all her railings I can only wonder why no one asks these people why they take such a vocal stand when France does it, but don’t say anything when the whole middle east is telling a woman (and a man) what she should war and not wear. Where the ‘human rights’ that they so trumpet around and uphold on television channels is missing entirely. Like in the case of Roxanne Hillier for example. And this is but the latest of many, and only those that became public. I’m not saying whether Sarkozy is right or not, but how come all this righteous indignation and protests and human rights goobledock and individual freedom of expression speeches are not targeted towards countries that run on Islamic law? Not that running a country by Islamic is wrong per se, but it’s just that everyone knows how liberal or uplifting or free these Islamic laws can be. Idiots I tell you.

Speaking of Islam, spotted hoardings around the city with Obama’s smiling mug on them for some organization handing out free copies of the Koran should you be interested. The ostensible reason is that you might be interested in knowing why Obama is quoting from the Koran. And Obama himself is playing to the field, putting the ‘Hussein’ back in Barack Hussein Obama. Wonder how many people still cling to the illusion that Obama becoming President of the US of A is a step forward for negro, I mean black, I mean African-american emancipation/equality, end of racism etc. Black skin white masks I tell you. Each day and article I read just reaffirms (to me at least) that the very fact that Obama got elected means that racism is well and alive and kicking. And kicking is what the racist Australians are doing to our people down under. Idiots I tell you.

And just for the sake of symmetry, let me end with a story I remember hearing an american theater actor whose name escapes me. On his first visit to Australia he was apparently stopped at the Immigration Counter and after a while an Oz officer came up to him, checked his papers, etc. and sternly asked him, “Any criminal records?” And the actor replied, “Oh! That’s still the essential requirement to be an Australian, is it?”

Naaviruva taanave gandhada gudi

Art. Architecture. Temples. Wildlife. Hills. Treks & Trails. Rafting. Beaches. Sand (if you count Talakadu). Forests. Rivers and Falls. History. You want it? You got it!Am glad I was born in this particular part of this great land.
Idu yaara tapasina phalavo? Ee kannugalu maadida punyavo?

Bharat ki aakhri Chai ki Dukaan

Make your way to Badrinath. Walk three kilometres to the last inhabited Indian village, Mana. If there are no panchayat elections happening on the day, you might just be lucky enough to hop on a local bus or jeep. I wasn’t.

Beyond this village there is nothing but snow-capped mountains. No habitation, just no-man’s land and then the china border. Walk through the village, up towards Vyas Gufa (the cave where Vyasa is supposed to have dictated the Mahabharata to Ganesha). And there, at the edge of Mana you will see one of the most memorable places I visited – and one of the more interesting people I met – during my month-and-a-half sojourn.

Meet Chandra Singh Barhwal. Proud owner of India’s Last Tea Shop, and a brewer of one mean cup of chai.

Bharat ka Ratan

Thanks Mr. Ratan Tata. For making us proud again. For showing us that there are still more people left in this country we can look up to. For showing us how promises are meant to be kept, for kept they should. You did it again. Congratulations. And thanks.

patriotism vs. Patriotism

This is Lakshmi Panda, a 77-year maid servant who’s been washing dishes and sweeping floors for the past many, many years who has the temerity to say that she now feels all that she did for the country was a waste. Hah! The sheer audacity of this woman. After all, who is she that she can make this statement?

She fought in the INA, yes, Netaji Bose’s Indian National Army in the Rani Lakshmi Bai Regiment under Capt. Lakshmi Sehgal. So what?

Does she not know that Bose and the INA never got us freedom from the British? It was Gandhi people, Gandhi and Gandhi alone that got us freedom! The INA was just riff-raff cobbled together by a disgruntled congressman who disagreed with the great Mahatma’s opinions and ideas. While Bose said, “My enemy’s enemy is my friend.” Gandhi said, “My enemy’s enemy is my enemy too!” Anybody with a bone of common sense can see who was right. Bose wanted to drive the British out of our country. Gandhi requested them to…please leave… And Gandhi won in the end. Sacrifice is the greatest ideal. And millions of our countrymen were sacrificed at the altar of Gandhi’s views, dying for the British, fighting for the Englishman and his cause. If that doesn’t make Gandhi great, what does?

Now, coming back to this maid servant, who thought she was fighting for freedom of her land. She hasn’t received her pension for the longest time. Making a living by working in others houses in the great Republic of India. She thinks she deserves a pension. But the Centre doesn’t. Their criteria is different. She isn’t a freedom fighter because she didn’t spend any time in jail. Now, that’s one hell of a definition. Clear. Concise. And no, prisons and hell-holes like the Cellular Jail might not count. There you go. That is why she doesn’t get any pension. Anyway, why ‘spend money’ on living freedom fighters who can anyway take care themselves? Think dignity of labour people!, even washing dirty dishes is a job! We’re better off not squandering our money way on these people with delusions of being patriotic when we can spend millions trying to get hold of the Great Mahatma’s handwritten manuscripts. After all, we got our independence because of Gandhi and Gandhi only. Ok. Ok. Nehru too. Yeah and some other random people. So given a choice between invaluable and priceless pieces of paper written on by the Great Man and people who gave their all to this great nation, who would you choose? Of course the manuscripts. You can laminate them and put them up for display at museums that tell us how Gandhi single-handedly won us our freedom. People, like Lakshmi Panda, will soon be dead anyway, and there’s no way you can put her on display.

After all, with the sixtieth anniversary of our Independence from the British coming up, acquisition of handwritten manuscripts make for better new stories, glamorous discussions, and opportunities to show more footage of The Great Gandhi than some old unglamorous shrivelled hag who thought she was being patriotic. And isn’t that the difference between patriotism and Patriotism? Media coverage and good PR?

Jai Hind!

my land, my peoples

A picture's worth a thousand words. These are worth billions to me. They tell me the story of how almost ten lakh people can crowd into a 3-kilometre stretch, driven there by nothing more than faith.
The sweltering heat. The suffocating humidity. Fainting is common. Stampedes more so. All to see the Siblings on their journey once. To see the gods who take sick leave. To see a king turn into a sweeper. To get a hand on the ropes that pull the chariots. Just once is enough. It's the dream of a lifetime for many people. Driven by nothing more than faith.

Once a part of them, you lose your Self in the flow. Carried away by the fervour that each one emanates. It's a time to celebrate. A time to worship. A time to wish. A time to pray. A time that i hope never passes.