Life

Are you living your dreams; or, of your Parents?

Image February 4, 2015 jcisnowjs 2 Comments

Live your life. Make your dreams come true. Turn your dreams int reality. Live your dreams.

Sounds familiar?

Too familiar?

You must have seen/heard these lines in so many motivational/inspirational posters and speeches. For 10 seconds or a minute, while you are reading that motivational line; you will feel a positive boost to your life and then, either you will sulk knowing your reality is different from your dreams, or you will feel good about living your dream life.

If you are living your dream then you must be elated about your life; and must be dreaming some new dreams. Carry on!!!

But, if you are not living your dream; have you ever given a thought, whose dream are you living actually?

If you are an Indian, there is a very good chance, that your life is a manifestation of your parents dreams. You may be a doctor, or an engineer, or a civil servant, or even can be a sports person; but there is a high probability, that you are, what your parents wanted you to be. Infact they must have decided it the moment you were born, or went to your first school, or college.

Every parent in the world, wants their children to do good, but it is not enough for Indian Parents. They want you to do better than their neighbors kids. So good, that they can boast of it later in front of whole social circle and relatives.

How they do it?

They will fill your brain with only one thing – that is – to be that someone, who they aspire you to be. If they want you to be doctor; they will make no conversation end without pointing it out to you, that how disappointing it would be, if you don’t become a doctor. You can be a total disgrace to family, if you choose to become something else. You became a Manager in a company, not good enough, your parents wanted you to be a Doctor. What a disappointment you are. Slap!!!

God forbid, you are an Indian girl; your parents are more worried about your marriage than your career. I remember the time when I had to fight my own parents, just to get education of my choice, and not do B.A. and get married. You have to fight so you do not get married, You have to fight for education, for career, for marriage, for everything in your life; irony being, you are fighting not with society but with your own parents and close relatives.

How many of us has the courage to speak up and fight for our dreams? It’s hard to stand up and fight your own parents, but it is worth it, when you achieve your dreams, and live life of your choice.

I respect those who live life on their own terms, regardless of what their parents, or relatives, or society, think of them.

Your dreams can be the same what your parents have dreamt for you. You may also want to be a Doctor, like your parents want of you; but what matters is have you dreamt of being a Doctor?

Remember ultimately you are living your life, and no one else can do it for you. So, better start living your own dreams, than following others.

Even Modi has Wife Issues(jcisnowjs.wordpress.com)
Story of Kavita – Enslaved in The Name of God, Helped by Mortals(jcisnowjs.wordpress.com)
Parenting Hinges More on Money Than Marriage(newser.com)
Am I a good Parent?(kelliehillnutrition.com)
#parenting Keep Your Priorities Straight(billydie.wordpress.com)

Spiritual

Buddhist Quote

Quote January 31, 2015 jcisnowjs Leave a comment

“We live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality. We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all.”

~ Buddhist Quote

Saturday Scroll – Quote by Martha Graham(jcisnowjs.wordpress.com)
Saturday Scroll – Buddhist Quote(jcisnowjs.wordpress.com)

Life, Movies

AIB Knockout – A Toast to the Roast

Image January 30, 2015 jcisnowjs Leave a comment

AIB’s Knockout Roast!!! What a Roast and what a bold new step in Indian Comedy.

If you have still not seen the AIB’s Knockout Roast of Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor, then….. I guess, you must be lying. You don’t have to tell me or anyone else, okay. Don’t come out of the closet. It’s okay, like they said in the Roast, “Why are they talking in public, what we talk in parties”. 😛

AIB is a comedy group of Indian comedians, co founded by Gursimran Khamba and Tanmay Bhatt, along with Rohan Joshi and Ashish Shakya. The event that has generated a lot of interest in them, and their group, is a Comedy Roasting event where AIB, along with Aditi Mittal, Abish Mathews, Raghuram and Rajeev Masand; roasted Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh.

It was special, because it was the first time that a no bounds roasting is done in an Indian comedy group, and that too with Roastee being a celebrity present there.

Roasting is like an insult comedy, where you trash your guest verbally by making fun of him/her in a best satirical way possible and the guest along with his well wishers present there, take all these insults in a good humor. If you want a more desi explanation – it’s more like in ladies sangeet of Indian Marriage where in some special songs, other party of marriage, is trashed in an abusive language.

Karan Johar was the perfect Roast Master and I would like to say, that he was at his best in the show. He was witty, with a perfect timing and, boy! He was sporty. Infact some of the best jokes were told on Karan’s expense. A big thumbs up for you, Karan.

What was interesting in all this was to see our female celebrities, like Deepika, Alia and Sonakshi, not only present there but also taking a lot of roast on themselves, in a very good way. Specially Deepika, seriously, thanks for taking one for the team. Alia baby, baby baby baby…. what were you doing there? Poor you! My bachcha…. beta, stay at home, these type of shows are for adults only.

Roasting was great, it was all in good fun, sometimes too offensive but when you compare it to Roasting comedy shows done internationally, it was not up to par with them. Where they lack was – content, few members trying too hard and off-course poor editing of the show.

Comedy Central’s Roasting shows are always a great fun to watch for. My favorite among them were those of Charlie Sheen and Joan Rivers. What made these shows fun was not the use of offensive language but the satire and witty one liners.

Content is the king. Some members like Tanmay, Khamba and Aditi were fresh in selecting their jokes and creative too. The best out of all the panel was Tanmay, who clearly is abundant in his talent too. Other comedians too were good but they became too much repetitive after some time. Most of the jokes look stale. Raghuram and Rajeev Masand were seriously not a good choice as the member of Roasting panel.

Specially Raghu was still on his Roadies set, and looked like he is trying too hard. He was stiff and abusive unnecessarily. Best rule of roast comedy is to roast someone in a way that as if you are toasting them. You don’t need to shout, as Raghu and Masand did, but infact you have to be satirical; which both lacked.

What did the most damage to the whole show, was its editing. It was like scrap of pieces joined together to make a comedy show. There was no continuity and flow. It was edited so much that it looked like the Roast of roasting panel than of the Roastees. Poor Rajeev Masand was highly edited, I don’t why, but it was like he said hi, and bye in a single shot.

To be honest, the Roastees, Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh did a far better roast than the roasting panel. Arjun too, looked like he is trying hard to look cool with the whole idea, but he can’t look cool, not when he is in company of Ranveer Singh.

Ranveer stole the show. He was the best. Let it be his mimicry of Rajeev masand, or his take on Raghu’s abusive private life, he was The Best. Karan scored just next to him. For the rest, you need to up your game.

It was not the best, but it is big step for Indian Comedy indeed. Kudos to the whole AIB team for tackling this Elephant in the Room. 😛

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#AIBKnockout Goes Viral: A Million Hits In 12 Hours(lighthouseinsights.in)
Does it make me a ‘bad person’ if I liked AIB Knockout? And other such existential questions.(itwofs.com)

Kids and Me, Photographs, Random

Thursday Treat – My First Crochet Shawl

Image January 29, 2015 jcisnowjs Leave a comment

Movies

Tuesday Talkies – Baby Movie

Image January 27, 2015 jcisnowjs Leave a comment

First of all, what the hell was that?

Seriously, what was that?

Was it a movie, or a documentary on 10 years of terrorism, along with how I want to kick these terrorists butt. Seriously, it felt like I was reading a newspaper first…. a long newspaper filled with all the terrorists activities…. and then I went to sleep thinking about how should we tackle it – just kill them all. Right??

‘Baby’ is an Indian action thriller movie, which stars Akshay Kumar and Danny Denzongpa in the lead role. Rana Daggubati, Anupam Kher and Taapsee Pannu are also in the movie, but with hardly a 10 minute of screen space is just enough to put them in supporting actors category.

This film is directed by Neeraj Pandey, of ‘A Wednesday‘, and ‘Special 26‘, fame. Those movies were among my favorites and they were critically acclaimed and very well written movies. They were in fact so close to reality, as any Indian movie can. They were conceptualized in such a way that you never loose the grip of reality and still you are flowing in that imaginary world of movie.

‘Baby’, if judged from the standards of action thriller movies that Bollywood produce, is by far a better choice; but when you put it in comparison to Neeraj Pandey’s earlier two movies, it was just not up to the standard.

Let’s first dig into the story of Baby, before I start trashing it, again.

Baby, as the name suggest, surprisingly, has nothing to do with a baby, not of any age, any size any color or species. Not even any chick/girl is referred as baby, in this movie.

Baby is the name of mission that our Hero and his team is working on. It’s a covert mission of tracking the activities of terror groups and then terminating them for good. They uncover a plan of terrorists to do serial blasts in India and the chasing game begins with Akshay Kumar traveling through the world to different locations to terminate every radical involved in the plan; and eventually to fail the bomb blast plan.

Although this is a very hard-hitting film, made as an effort to display reality as possible, but there were many illogical sequences in the film which make you cringe with disappointment. The scene where a terrorist Bilaal (I hope I remember his name right, role is performed by Kay Kay Menon), escapes from police security in a car chase sequence. You just wonder where are these roads in Mumbai, without any traffic or living soul present. Leave Mumbai, and show any highway in India, which is that deserted. Or, just think of it, if police is moving a terrorist from one place to another would they be so foolish as to not laid out a road plan before covered with security personnel in every corner. Leave all the logic to Bollywood.

Another interesting scene, is that of Taapsee Pannu, where she mercilessly beat up our dear Sushant Singh, in a hotel room. Poor Sushant, your talent is wasted here. You are meant to deliver a power packed performance, not merely take blows. Coming to think of it, it actually felt good, that first time in an Indian action movie, hero was not the savior of heroine, she helped herself.

On a different note, this movie can be a lot better, in fact the best work of Neeraj, and Akshay, if one person would have done his job right – the Editor.

Editing is the main problem area of this movie. As in the scene described above of Taapsee, you are just waiting and waiting for them to reach their destination.

Worst editing is done in the climax scenes. You just wonder, if it’s going to move forward, or you can take a nap and come back to watch the hero cross airport corridor.

What was the most beautiful thing about this movie was – Chacha Maulana something….

Oh! he is so beautiful, chubby fellow, with eyelids the size of titanic, and eyes having fireballs in them. In one scene one servant is washing his feet softly, in another scene, chacha is kicking Akshay’s butt. Infact n this whole movie, our old chachu jaan is the only person, who has literally hurt Akshay hard.

You the man – Chachu Jaan.