BE YOURSELF !!

Nobody, let nobody tell you what you are and what you can do and what your limits are ! We live in a world where normal is somebody with a "regular" job, family, two kids and a car, slogging your ass off if you are a man and a working,home maker with 2 kids and a providing husband who buys you stuff that you can show off to the other wives ...is "normal" !!

Well, there is a large contingent of population who are something other than normal !. There is special, there is extraordinary, there is different, there is odd, there is weird, there is new and there is real !!. The ordinary people who try so hard to fit into the box , be acceptable, be under the radar, be struggling so hard to survive while trying to look normal and accepting life with lowered expectations are the real messed up ones!.

The human psychology is to fear everything that they dont understand and fear anything that is new! Genius, Gay, Recluse,Oddly wired, emotionally traumatized, addictions are all not mostly man made or self made. They are as good or as bad as everyone else in this human race and to ostracize,blame push,abuse and attack are the deeds of misinformed, misguided, ill brought up, insensitive and insecure individuals who are not comfortable in their own skin.

The different individuals dont need our sympathy, empathy or even an effort to understand them.Just let them be and accept as you would accept yourself. We conveniently provide reasoning to all our thoughts, dreams,actions and goals ! Why not do the same to everyone else around us?.

If you cant help, dont harm by dismissive attitude,disapproval,judging and vindicating every step of the way since you cant put them in a box ?? The world has a place for everybody, a use for everybody and a job for everybody they can excel in and a person for everybody that will accept, embrace and love !!

Geniuses have died misunderstood and as paupers and then years or centuries later have been awarded posthumously or have had their works of prose, discovery, invention or art hailed and auctioned as masterpieces.In this supposed informed , evolved times, are we going to do the same to people who we dont understand or interpret according to our upbringing ( our parents brought up with belief systems and values with the tools they had in hand with the information accessible to them!) Isn't it our duty and fundamental right to grow beyond the teaching and learning drilled into us by God/religion fearing, authority fearing and approval fearing elders of our past times ?

Every human being is special, however different they may seem on the outside, there is a soul deep inside crying out for understanding,acceptance and unconditional love , not to mention or at least for love as a fellow human being. If we cant provide it then we are not any different from religious war mongers whose hate is stemmed from the the fact that another man/sect/clan/religion has different beliefs and faith !.

Love/ friendship these days comes with a long sheet of tick lists....

1)Is the person good looking ( social acceptance and vain pride!)

2) Is the person socially acceptable to my peers and elders

3) Is the person a good earner/provider

4) Does the person have a past that is acceptable ( to my narrow mind?!)

5) Does the person pamper and spoil me?

6) Does the person have social graces to my liking

7) Does the person make me feel good about myself (and make me forget my insecurities!)

8) Does the person let me do my thing while adhering to my conditions demands

9) Does the person put his/her happiness before mine

10) Does the person let me dominate the conversation

The list goes on and on...

we are dominated by peer pressure in our outlook, selfishness in our needs, vanity in our wants and unreasonableness in our desires!.... such is the world we live in and newness and strange makes us suspicious, guarded and puts us in attack mode !!

we need to chill and accept that life is for living...not just us but also for everyone around us and we need to help make the surrounding, society, country and the world we live in a more peaceful place by starting with ourselves!.Get rid of judgement, reproach, guardedness, homophobic nature and be free of prejudices coz in the end it always comes back to haunt and hurt us. Karma is a bitch...trust me !!

Nothing in this world is as it seems and there is a deeper reasoning to everything. some we can understand, some we is beyond our information, knowledge or comprehension!

here are some facts...

1)there are two sides to international terrorism....ask both sides and legitimate reasoning will be given by both sides!

2) smoking was legal and fashionable...now illegal to do it in many places!

3) Being Gay or Lesbian was illegal in India..not anymore!

4) marijuana is illegal all over the world ...except Netherlands!

5) you are given medals for killing in war.... hanged when you do it to protect your family!

These examples are all about understanding that nothing is real, forever or right !!

There are many Leaders in our society who take it up on themselves to moral police us when in spite of being in a position of power, they cant eradicate poverty, control violence, put a roof on every citizen's head, abolish corruption that is happening under their nose (or indulge in stealing millions themselves), but they will do everything in their power and God given right to tell people how to lead their lives and what moral rules to follow!!.

All you can do in the time given to you in this world is to accept, embrace and move forward.... the best way you see fit while going through your fears, insecurities, guilt, accidents to body (and mind!), recuperate, heal, learn and ....LIVE !! I say LIVE in capitals coz if you are living a life of suspicion, wariness, blame, control, dominating the powerless, being dominated by the powerful, unforgiveness and loathe .....you are existing and doing it badly!!

We all have only one certain goal....and before we reach that goal, lets try and make the world around us more tolerable...by being more tolerant!!

Btw...THAT CERTAIN GOAL IS..... DEATH !!

(who says we cant have happy endings??) :)

The relationship maze....!

Some are lucky, some aren't, some fake it, some compromise, some have lowered expectations, some cant hold a conversation but need a lot of attention, some don't need intellectual stimulation, some happy with fake people, some happy with false promises, some happy just between the sheets, some too closed to open up 'between the sheets', some happy that they have someone "to show" that they are happy, some are getting it on the side, some have "open" relationships, some love the drama, some can't escape, some can't accept the truth, some live single while committed, some can never be committed, some can never be lonely, some cant run, some dont know any better, some convince themselves this is probably happiness, some are scared to let go, some are scared to hold on, some dont give themselves the chance, some cant give others a chance, some have unrealistic expectations, some expect the other person to make them happy, some blame their misery on the other person, some love even when they dont like, some like but cant get themselves to love, some blame it on fate, some blame it on time, some blame it on timing, some blame themselves, some think it's never their fault, some can never see the truth, some prefer to live far away thinking and wishing 'what if' when they are needed to be 'mentally' around, some get too needy, some get too greedy, some cant see the problems inside and around, some can see only the problems, some prefer to be single because they can't forget! some are single because they cant forgive the other, some are single because they cant forgive themselves! Phew!! Where do we stand...? Wherever we do, life is tough!!

a lovely after note from a friend....

Anu Reaney and yet, we all somehow muddle along, wishing, waiting, hoping, dreaming, grabbing at the sometimes elusive, sometimes ephemeral chances at happiness, with others and with ourselves. Life maybe tough, but its all we've got and I for one am happy just to be breathing. :-)re lu

man as a woman.... !!

A man was sick and tired
Of going to work every day
While his wife stayed home.
He wanted her to see what he went
Through so he prayed:
'Dear Lord:
I go to work every day and put
In 8 hours while my wife
Merely stays at home.
I want her to know what
I go through.
So, please allow her body to
Switch with mine for a day.

God, in his infinite wisdom,
Granted the man's wish.
The next morning, sure enough,
The man awoke as a woman...
He arose, cooked breakfast
For his mate,
Awakened the kids,

Set out their school clothes,
Fed them breakfast,
Packed their lunches,
Drove them to school,
Came home and picked
Up the dry cleaning,
Took it to the cleaners
And stopped at the bank
To make a deposit,

Went grocery shopping,
Then drove home to put
Away the groceries,

Paid the bills and balanced
The check book.
He cleaned the cat's litter box
And bathed the dog..
Then, it was already 1 P.M.
And he hurried to make the beds,
Do the laundry, vacuum,
Dust, And sweep and mop
The kitchen floor.
Ran to the school to pick up
The kids and got into an argument
With them on the way home.
Set out milk and cookies and
Got the kids organized to do
Their homework.
Then, set up the ironing board
And watched TV while he
Did the ironing.
At 4:30 he began peeling
Potatoes and washing
Vegetables for salad,
Breaded the pork chops
And snapped
Fresh beans for supper.

After supper,
He cleaned the kitchen,
Ran the dishwasher,
Folded laundry,
Bathed the kids, And put
Them to bed.
At 9 P.M. He was exhausted
And, though his daily chores
Weren't finished, he went to
Bed where he was expected to
Make love, which he managed
To get through without complaint.

The next morning, he awoke
And immediately knelt by the
Bed and said: -
Lord, I don't know what
I was thinking.
I was so wrong to envy my
Wife's' being able to stay
Home all day.
Please, Oh! Please,
Let us trade back.. Amen!'
The Lord, in his infinite wisdom, replied:

'My son, I feel you have
Learned your lesson and
I will be happy to change
Things back to the way
They were.
You'll just have to wait
Nine months, though.
You got pregnant last night.'

This has been voted
Women's Favorite
E-mail of the Year!

If you agree, send it
To all your friends who
Would enjoy this!!!!

Must Read ! Very Powerfully Worded. Bravo - Prakash Bajaj, Editor of Times of India.

LETTER OF THE EDITOR OF "THE TIMES OF INDIA" TO THE PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA Dear Mr. Prime minister, I am a typical mouse from Mumbai. In the local train compartment which has capacity of 100 persons, I travel with 500 more mice. Mouse at least squeaks, but we don't even do that. Today I heard your speech, in which you said, 'NO BODY WOULD BE SPARED'. I would like to remind you that fourteen years have passed since serial bomb blasts in Mumbai took place. Dawood was the main conspirator. Till today he is not caught. All our Bollywood actors, our builders, our Gutka king keep meeting him, but your Government can not catch him. Reason is simple; all your ministers are hand in glove with him. If any attempt is made to catch him, everybody will be exposed. Your statement 'NOBODY WOULD BE SPARED' is nothing but a cruel joke on these unfortunate people of India. Enough is enough. As such, after seeing terrorist attack carried out by about a dozen young boys, I realize that if same thing continues, days are not far away when terrorists will attack by air, destroy our nuclear reactors and there will be one more Hiroshima. We the people are left with only one mantra. Womb to Bomb to Tomb. You promised Mumbaikar Shanghai; what you have given us is Jalianwala Baug. Today only your home minister resigned. What took you so long to kick out this joker? Only reason was that he was loyal to Gandhi family. Loyalty to Gandhi family is more important than blood of innocent people, isn't it? I am born and brought up in Mumbai for last fifty eight years. Believe me, corruption in Maharashtra is worse than that in Bihar. Look at all the politicians, Sharad Pawar, Chagan Bhujbal, Narayan Rane, Bal Thackray , Gopinath Munde, Raj Thackray, Vilasrao Deshmukh all are rolling in money. Vilasrao Deshmukh is one of the worst Chief ministers I have seen. His only business is to increase the FSI every other day, make money and send it to Delhi, so Congress can fight next election. Now the clown has found new way and will increase FSI for fishermen, so they can build concrete houses right on sea shore. Next time terrorists can comfortably live in those houses, enjoy the beauty of the sea and then attack our Mumbai at their will. Recently, I had to purchase a house in Mumbai. I met about two dozen builders. Everybody wanted about 30% in black. A common person like me knows this and with all your intelligent agency & CBI, you and your finance ministers are not aware of it. Where all the black money goes? To the underworld isn't it? Our politicians take help of these goondas to vacate people by force. I myself was victim of it. If you have time please come to me, I will tell you everything. If this has been a land of fools, idiots, then I would not have ever cared to write to you this letter. Just see the tragedy. On one side we are reaching moon, people are so intelligent; and on the other side, you politicians have converted nectar into deadly poison. I am everything Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Schedule caste, OBC, Muslim OBC, Christian Schedule caste, and Creamy Schedule caste; only what I am not is INDIAN. You politicians have raped every part of Mother India by your policy of divide and rule. Take example of our Former President Abdul Kalam. Such an intelligent person; such a fine human being. But you politician didn't even spare him and instead choose a worthless lady who had corruption charges and insignificant local polititian of Jalgaon WHO'S NAME ENTIRE COUNTRY HAD NOT HEARD BEFORE. Its simple logic your party just wanted a rubber stamp in the name of president. Imagine SHE IS SUPREME COMMANDAR OF INDIA'S THREE DEFENCE FORCES. what moral you will expect from our defence forces ? Your party along with opposition joined hands, because politicians feel they are supreme and there is no place for good person. Dear Mr Prime minister, you are one of the most intelligent persons, a most learned person. Just wake up, be a real SARDAR. First and foremost, expose all selfish politicians. Ask Swiss banks to give names of all Indian account holders. Give reins of CBI to independent agency. Let them find wolves among us. There will be political upheaval, but that will be better than dance of death which we are witnessing every day. Just give us ambience where we can work honestly and without fear. Let there be rule of law. Everything else will be taken care of. Choice is yours Mr. Prime Minister. Do you want to be lead by one person, or you want to lead the nation of 100 Crore people? Prakash B. Bajaj Editor Mumbai-Times of India

hormones of a growing up geek! (part 1)

Ok, I am back!! Not with any intelligent, interesting,topical, mind blowing, mind boggling, brain numbing(maybe out of boredom!),life changing,path breaking, or thought provoking reading material, but my usual nonsense which might bother some, irk some,anger some, offend some, insult some, shock some and if I managed to do all that, I am blessed, happy and content!. Thank you ! :p !

The heading is purely for my own entertainment and to make sure you read this drivel ! I am taking you back to my childhood years of confusion and gradually going to lead you on to my growing up years of confusion and ultimately to my grown up years of..........confusion!! What is he talking about...you might ask?(as you always must wonder!), but ask any boy growing up about girls and hormones and he will definitely be confused! Actually, ask any man about women and he will be confused too!!

Coming to the point (isn't 'coming' the point?!, but I digress, like I always do!) This is about my childhood and my growing years and my brush with adolescence, insecurities,crushes, romance, manhood and all that nonsense that nobody wants to talk about!

Since no one wants to, I am here, the knight in 'rusty' armour, dying to talk about shit you dont wanna hear about, talk about and acknowledge!!

I was about 8 or 9 when I came face to face with what sex!(noooooo, not in person, you perverts!!). I was taken to a premiere of a film by my dad since I hounded him to take me to the beach and he had no time for an evening in the beach with a little twerp who had an appetite of a rhinocerous and the retaining power of a sparrow! Instead of feeding me and having me throw up all the way back, he decided to take me to a movie premiere to spare himself my nonsense! He told me it was hero Krishna's film and I was so excited since he did a lot of action/cowboy movies then and was looking forward to some good old asswhupping by the hero to the goons with the outdated 'dishum dishum' sounds !!.On reaching there, the friend who called my dad to the premiere was shocked on seeing me and whispered something to my dad and my dad said , he's a little kid, he wont understand! Such fateful words they were!, mostly because it was an 'ADULTS ONLY' film and it was about a man's affair with his maid and how his wife deals with it(which was the boring part for me!!). I was completely mesmerised at the hero forcing himself on the maid and the maid after a while agreeing with moans of yes... which made me understand it was all agreeable to the girl and the hero and both were getting it on! (they were biting each other and smelling each other a lot, probably since kissing was a big no,no!) and what they were getting it on became a source of mystery for me since then on !!

So, the ever inquisitive mind of yours truly went off to find out what they were upto and proceeded to ask my friends at school and one 'whispered to me' that it was 'sex' after looking here and there..lest anyone would listen and from then on, it became a habit for me to whisper that word!(like most Indians do, I guess!!). One other wise friend told me that a man has to sleep on top of a woman and she would have babies!! I was shocked and wondered if thats how I came about into this world?!( though the thought of my dad with my mom made me lose my appetite for a day before I decided never to include my parents and sex in the same thoughts!! Another intelligent friend told me that a man kisses a woman and babies were born!. Here i was wondering what they were doing on top of each other and these friends of mine were talking about babies!! I failed to see the connection till another friend told me that anything you did with girls resulted in babies!!.That killed my curiosity for a while ( about babies,..not about sex!!)

I still kept checking out magazines and pictures/posters for any clue of 'sexing' or any such thing, but in the days of no TV and no reading material allowed in the house apart from school books and cartoons, it remained a mystery to me for a long time!!

All was going well till i was thrown into a co-ed school and the whole world changed for me! I encountered girls!; these alien creatures who threatened my very existence by shattering my calm, content and eventless life of substandard grades, bad knowledge of English and limited knowledge of everything you could think of!!.They all sat in front of the class, they all got good marks and were the first ones to raise their hands when a question was asked and even answered correctly! The intelligent boys decided to hate them for upstaging them, the brash boors decided to hate them for acting so superior, the average, almost passed boys (like me!) decided to hate them because the girls ignored us...so basically we were on one team/side/planet and they were on the other! (Anything you dont understand, you hate..is human tendency, which I learnt later on !!)

My reading started with comics and then on to Enid Blyton (Famous Five and Secret Seven!) and then on to Hardy Boys which had nothing to offer apart from plain excitement, no mystery to unravel as far as girls were concerned!. It didn't help much that all the boys kept them at arms length, vary of their intelligence,their studious nature and their hushed conversations which the boys always attributed to their plotting against the boys to upstage them! Suddenly one day a friend of mine pushed something into my bag and said, 'this is for you'..if you get caught, dont say my name! I had no clue what it was and since I was too young and/or dumb to wonder about drugs and contraband, I went home in eager anticipation about what it was! at home, in a quiet corner( I didn't have my own bedroom) of my bed which was in a corner of the room where my aunt slept, I gazed upon the stash!.It was a book called Nick Carter and it was about a secret agent and his adventures.I didn't think much of it, but proceeded to read it as a fantasy till I came to his exploits with women..it was graphic, detailed and intoxicatedly erotic !(all to me since if you read it today, it would be nothing much!) .i discovered sex!! I had all the answers, finally!! I read, reread it a million times and was happy that i finally found the answers i was looking for!(or so i thought!)

Now, with my new found knowledge, I entered the school the next day and started looking at the world (and girls!) in a new light!. Suddenly these strange creatures started to go from 'stay away enemies' to 'not bad' to 'gotta find out more about them'

status !. I confessed to my friend ( the bootleg/smuggler/dealer of the infamous book!) that girls are not so bad and he looked at me wolfishly and smiled!, saying 'I got some more books, with pictures!!'. I almost had a heart attack (if it was possible for a 11 yr old to have a heart attack over porn!) and greedily nodded my head up and down, as if to say yes, all the while gulping and wide eyed with excitement.he said soon!, with an all knowing smile and proceeded to take his Nick Carter and ran off, leaving me in dismay at having lost a treasure !

This is about the time that the infamous 'hormones' starting kicking in at the wise old age of 12! (for me and the rest of the class, which I figured later!).Suddenly the boys chins became darker, the upper lip became darker (for the boys as well as some girls!!).lo and behold, the girls suddenly looked fairer, feminine, walking funny(hips swaying, which I couldn't figure out then!),their highpitched giggles was something i would wait to hear

and the flowers they wore on their pony tails or long braids suddenly seemed intoxicating! As it is my day dreaming kept me out of class(mentally!) till then, now this distraction just wouldn't let me concentrate on studies, school and my ordinary life!.It seemed to me that suddenly all boys wanted to talk about was girls and were busy exchanging books of raunchy stories and since I had nothing to exchange with (since I was banned at home from buying any book with romantic pose on the cover!)!.I had to contend with Archie comics and ogling at Betty and Veronica ( I was even willing to fantasize about Ethel, imagine how desperate I was!!) How I managed to get passing grades and stay under the radar(from being expelled!), God only knows !!

This is when something physical started happening to me...down south!! A stirring in my loins, to say the least.....! something that scared, shocked, astonished and petrified me since there was one body part that I thought belonged to me and it was telling me clearly that it would listen to no one!! It kept bothering me at all the wrong times and I was embarrassed to get up most of the time, not knowing if I can share this info with anyone, whether something was wrong with me and if the problem was mental or physical since it was an equal opportunity culprit, bothering me at visual imagery and imaginary imagery !!.Every girl looked fine and every woman looked sensual!.I was going through hell since I couldn't talk to anyone about it and by the time I was thirteen, I decided to 'take the matters in my own hands'!!

PART DEUX COMING SOON.....if you like this !!!

Flirting !!

Boy, it's been a while since I put pen or paper ( or is it typed on comp or ..put thoughts online??) whatever it is, before I confuse myself some more before I even start writing( or is it typing?..damn I digress again!!) ok, ok the point I am trying to make is that it's been a while..nuff said and i won't confuse myself or you anymore !!

I have a confession to make..(no, its not about the threesome or something in those lines.. wherever your dirty mind takes you!!) I titled this flirting purely for eyeballs/readers/trp's/audience... whatever you call it depending on the medium you are trying to attract! It has nothing to do with the banal meaning of the word, which is to tease the opposite sex ( and sometimes same sex..these days!!) with innuendos and arousing words!. This flirting is of the different kind!. What other kind could there be?, you might ask. There is and I will explain if you are not impatient like me!. I flirt with life, living, love and finally, disaster!!Before i sound like a basket case, lemme explain!

There have been many instances when well meaning peers, friends and elders have heaped advice on me, telling me how I should/ should have planned my life better, my finances better and my life choices better! I am so tired of listening to it that I am sometimes, actually most of them short of patience and would love to politely tell them to 'fornicate off ' but then, I hold my tongue and let the bile in my throat pass (in either direction) and then change the topic after smiling benignly at their concern!

It is no surprise that all the advice has come from people who have jobs that they hate and although they go through the same amounts of stress as anyone else, they think doing a job they dont love is worth it as long as the monthly pay check is steady, the bills are paid and a percentage is put away for the kids!! Sounds sensible right?? then why the eff doesn't it sound sensible to me?? coz I am me!! (weird/mad/stupid/crazy...take your pick!!)and I live on adrenalin, the rush, the danger of the unknown, living on the edge,living for the love of my work...etc, etc!!I am no saint or hero..it's just the way some of us are wired, that's all!!

Now how could I plan anything when I have chosen a profession where I dont know what my next job is, where my next paycheck is coming from, dont know how long the highs or lows (of income and success) last?? And hey, as long as I am not asking for money from the people who advise me. what gives them the right to advise me?? I have no complaints... I can live on what I have and I can live on what I dont have , but I can live with dignity knowing that I am doing a job that I love and I look forward to doing it, Monday, Sunday , rain , snow sun or sleet!! How many people can boast of that??. The upside, when it rains..it pours!; the down side, when you are down, you are out and forgotten unless you have the dogged determination and optimism that keeps you from putting a bullet in your head and carry on cheerfully despite rejection of every kind possible?!!

I dont really know how many people can relate to this, but in the world of entertainment, you are only as good as your last project and you are only as busy as the work you are doing right now! Anything can happen, change, catapult you (up or down) with such swiftness that will make anyone's head spin! Such is the high of the entertainment industry !! The point I am trying to make is that people in the arts are people who have to be foolishly optimistic and greedily hungry for more.... not more money, but better opportunities and better chances at showcasing their talent or bettering themselves by working in elite company of stalwarts who improve their... game/craft/talent !!

For a real artiste, it is never about the money, it is all about the rush you feel when you are in the moment... performing, creating, conducting, directing etc etc !! When the times are good, things fall into place and there are people who take care of the mundane ( as in finances!!) and when the times or bad, you either dont make that much or even if you make, there isn't anyone there to safe guard your interests ( and maybe even steal from you, coz you are too busy loving what you are doing!!). So, it could go either way and as it so happens, it happens to the most of us!! If as artistes we didn't flirt with danger ( read that as putting money in something you see the world's worth in, but others dont!) flirt with love (coz we see what can be and not what is..and the motives!!) flirt with living ( no respect for time,rest, sleep and normalcy!!) and flirt with danger ( we live in the moment, not the repercussions!) flirt with disaster ( most of our lives are disasters, anyway!!) and flirt with life ( many lives have gone down the drain, but have been posthumously hailed, a la Picasso/Guru Dutt/Charlie Chaplin!)

The reason behind this scribbling is that there are second chances...

No body can predict tomorrow and for those who are seeing lows, ...this too shall pass! for those who are seeing fame, name, money and heady success,...this too shall pass! Nothing is constant in life and the best thing to do is to take everything with a pinch of salt!. Take what you do seriously, not yourself...never yourself coz you are no more than a speck of sand in a vast beach full of sand till the eye can see!! There is an Amitabh Bachan who came back from the dead (financially and career wise!), there is a John Travolta and there is a Diego Maradonna who reinvented themselves and came back with a bang!!

Artistes, performers and creators need to understand that since they have put their heart ahead of their head, all they have is their work to lead the way...to success or failure and trust me, you will see both, ...in turns! For those who haven't been recognized, dont lose hope..for those who have been up and are seeing down, reinvent your craft, your tools and come back bigger and better and for those who think they have reached a plateau of mediocrity, get away for a while and come back with clarity! Time away is always the answer.... you dont find them when in you are in the middle of the battle for survival..you need to get out and look at yourself objectively and what you have to offer... neutrally!!

I have no clue as to where I am going with all this, but all I can say is I am enjoying the rush and the uncertainty and telling others to keep the faith! and concentrate on what you do and not the results! A batsman needs to look at the ball while playing and not the scoreboard, right?? So for all the friends from the entertainment industry in one form of the other, it's ok to feel low, it's ok to feel high (elated..lest you think drugs!!)..we give our everything out there and what life gives back to us can never be bad unless we have a self destruct button inside us , (which we need to watch out for!!) coz some do measure their self worth to the love and adoration they get from fans, which is always a bad plan!!

For those who believe in what they have to offer, the time will come and all you need to do is.......hold on !! THE BEST IS YET TO COME !! Good luck and God Bless !!

P.S I have traded my sense of humor for sincerity, hope you will all forgive me! I will try not to repeat this mistake again !!

Madness !!

Since I am no internationally acclaimed writer and there would be no national calamity or catastrophe, I decided if I give you, hapless readers a break since my mind went blank for a while (like it does most of the time!!).

At this point I have a private confession to make on a public blog space..I was extremely busy and preoccupied doing something extremely important to me....nothing!! For all you people who have begun to envy my blankness, joblessness and most of all my supreme mediocrity,,,hold your horses! I enjoy (others would call it suffer,but we will conveniently ignore the logically minded people for a moment!),yes..I enjoy extremely high levels of ADD! ( for the uninformed,that is attention deficit disorder!!).

I have a hyperactive mind that is constantly doing something or the other and when I have long breaks between work, I go into a frenzy of activity...mostly the kind that will hurt me on after-sight!!. To keep myself busy, I am busy devising business schemes that are guaranteed to lose money, help friends with something that I will be conveniently blamed for pretty soon, planning movie projects that only people in Korea or Japan 'might' watch and even investing my heart in places with a 'German precision and guarantee' for failure and hurt!!

Recently I had an epiphany and probably for the first time (due to my ADD, I dont remember the last time, so for convenience sake, let's assume this is the first!!), I am sitting back and trying to take stock of my life!.My mistakes from the past and the new mistakes I was dangerously close to making...! I have decided I will not make the same mistakes and look deep inside my mind (and pretend there is a lot of depth inside!) and be still,calm and stop my 'running around like a headless chicken' sport that I like playing with my team members who are all in my head!

Phew, I have sufficiently and suitably confused all as to my delay in blogging, but that is not the point I am trying to make in this blog! To set the record straight, all my friends will vouch for my not having any ADD problems( though madness is widely suspected!). I confess to start with some humor to address a problem that is silently plaguing this nation and maybe this world!!

psychiatry is still unknown, unappreciated, undervalued specialization in medicine that we have today. Crazies and loonies is a term loosely used for slotting people when we dont understand their words and actions but it goes much deeper than that.On a lighter note...without which you might not care to read this, we are not talking the mad old woman at the traffic signal who chases you with a stick when you try to give her some change...! We are talking about normal people (on the outside) who are battling demons on the inside without understanding what they are going through and why they are going through!

Educated, affluent people with full access to a psychiatrist and his help do not like to acknowledge problems, thanks largely to the stigma that is associating with a shrink with madness and the person being ineligible for a job and marriage and normal life!!

A 55 year old man suddenly quits his job and goes in to a crippling depression, refuses to seek help;a 60 year old woman leaves husband, children and home with no clue where she is going or wants to go; a woman is hurriedly married off by the parents to a man who has heavy suicidal tendencies that she is reduced to being his guard and watchman so that he doesn't attempt it...again!; a young woman, after one year of marriage is caught trying to kill her new born!!

These are real incidents and there are many more we dont know about silently happening all around us!. Friends, if you see the signs around you, reach out and help, guide them to seek help.I dont claim to know much about the subject, but there are so many kinds of disorders that can happen to the human mind and slowly science is progressing to understand the variances and deficiency in the chemicals needed for the human brain, which the scientists have only touched the minuscule tip of the iceberg!!

ADD- attention deficit disorder, OCD-obsessive compulsive disorder ADHD- attention deficit hyperactive disorder, Bipolar behavior 1 and 2 ( mood swings ),

Chronic Depression, which needs no explanation,Schizophrenia - a multiple personalty disorder ........ so on and so forth!The reason why I brought this up is that we are not as unaware or uneducated as our elders... we need to be much more aware of this field so that we dont make the mistakes our elders did!A relative of mine was married off to a manic depressive and she still is living that hell!

On a lighter note, in the US, there is a common medication that everyone thinks is the answer to all problems...PROZAC ! So much so that it has become a joke but universal cures for all problems with a single tablet is a myth and self medication is extremely dangerous!! We as Asians have a ready made answer in comparison to the westerner! we blame it on fate or karma and we are never plagued with responsibility of actions or guilt because God is doing it all....it's never our fault!!

The average westerner believes he is responsible for his actions and feels low when he screws up, but not our Asian!! So to some degree, the Asians are lucky to have so many Gods to entrust their guilt on and sleep peacefully !!

I know this is the first time I have sounded preachy or even sane but I apologize for my lapse in madness and promise to be less in control of logic next time! :p

p.s .. any Docs out there, feel free to correct me on the medical terms!!

Backing up now...!

Born an idiot with insanity firmly in my DNA and christened with a name like "Mysore Seshaiah Suresh Babu' I learnt early on that there is very slim hope for me in this cruel, competitive, unforgiving and 'normal' world!! ( I presumed that the world was normal and that i was the weird one, but am slowly coming to terms that things are just the opposite!!)

I am a Telugu brought up in Chennai from my childhood , living in Hyderabad with a surname of Mysore!! I give the word 'oxymoron' a complex (for the uninitiated , that's a phrase that has two contrasting meanings..with a classic example being 'Military Intelligence"!! OK, i will dumb it down even further... Military is blindly following orders, while intelligence is independent thought process with clarity!..phew!!). So military and intelligence cannot coexist in this world where soldiers are still being sent to slaughter while looking for non-existent weapons of mass destruction and Presidents who have promised change are still sending troops(double the amount now!!) to look for a terrorist that is easily accessible to all the news media and all heads of (terrorist friendly ) neighboring governments!!.There I go, digressing again..but then that could come as a relief to those readers who really dont give a rat's ass to the excruciatingly silly blog about my growing up years that is as dull as watching "an item girl trying to act sincere and really in love with the hero in a trashy, badly made masala film with an over the hill hero'!!

Coming back to the oxymoron..(friends call me a moron who is built like an ox!, ok, enough of self deprecating humor now!!) I realized that I hated my name from the very day i stepped into school!.Not the kindergarden where I escaped because boys my age where still struggling with control on their release of bodily functions in the middle of a class. That probably kept them too preoccupied from picking on me.I have a vague memory of a boy scooping his own brown matter and proudly showing it to the disgusted teacher who banished him with the maid to the toilets!.I didn't think much of it then, but wondering about it now, kinda casts some doubts on the brought up and the parenting dont you think??

School, was another story altogether! on sight i was picked on for being fair, scrawny and short!, but my story didn't end there...as soon as they realized my name in all it's hilarity, they started making fun of it and i went home and cried to my parents..(read that as aunt, as my father was constantly fighting his battles with career in other states and my mother had no clue what to do with these humongous issues like, 'her son being bullied' and such!) My aunt took it upon herself to come to school and somehow managed to eradicate the 'Seshaiah' from my name (which belonged to my grandfather, much to his consternation since he was still alive and kicking(himself!!, for still being alive and under the control of his oldest daughter, my aunt!!)

So I continued my studies till 3rd standard with the name Mysore Suresh Babu' in some school that I dont remember!(it could have been Ramakrishna Mission High School). I supposed to have excelled so much there that they thought (read that as my over bearing, extremely wise aunt!) put me in Oxford English School and there I was tried and tested and then double promoted to 5th standard.So in actual fact, I didn't know a 4th standard! ( I am sure some other factors came into play for this double promotion and I am not going to go into greased palms here!!) My father was overjoyed on hearing this news, my aunt was pleased as a punch at her achievement and my mother was extremely satisfied that her son got to surpass her in educational qualifications!! I was the only one 'quivering in my underwear' at the thought of going into a class much higher than I was supposed to !

That extremely intelligent act of my aunt sounded the death knell of my so called excellence in education and it became a daunting task to keep up with the idiots in class, never mind the intelligent or performing ones!!. On top of it this there was the issue of fitting in...since I was living in an economically challenged neighborhood, I picked up 'Madras Tamil' very early and was very comfortable and the feeble attempts by my mother and the caning by my grandfather to perfect Telugu fell into deaf ears and my derrière got used to my grandfather's waning strength with the cane!

Coming back to fitting in, it's strange how children form stereo types very early in their lives!! I couldn't mix with the local boys because I wasn't fair, I couldn't mix with the fair north Indians because I didn't speak their language, I couldn't mix with the one or two Telugus since they weren't from filmi backgrounds and ostracized me since I was!! The mallu boys didn't mix with anyone else.... My 'Persona non Grata' (Person who didn't matter or an invisible person!) status in school improved when word got out that i was acting in movies and curiosity got them to ask me questions and I was only too proud to answer since finally....somebody was talking to me! That too was short lived thanks to my dad!.And btw, I removed the 'Babu' from my name because it was fitting into a stereo type I wasn't comfortable with. (Hence my screen name being just 'Suresh' and am comfortable with it!) Couldn't help bringing out the 'Mysore' for my corporate job ( which I wanted to and have experienced!), since I had to have a last name, God knows why!!

There was a friend of mine in my street who had a brother with my name and was the epitome of mischief! He had a very curious mind ( to say the least!)and every second or third day his parents would take him to the hospital for shoving something in his face, nose, ass and every other orifice he would think of ...at that point in time! At 6 he was everything a mother didn't want in an offspring and I still wonder how she didn't have homicidal tendencies towards him for the amount of ruckus he did. Starting with charging at guests with a knife to calling the milkman, mailman obscenities to killing/maiming any bird, insect, animal that crossed his path, he was destruction personified! No amount of thrashing from his father rectified his ways and me playing cricket with his brother and some others in the street resulted in him running away with the ball (which might have been natural!) and throwing a dead, lifeless, punctured ball back to us (which isnt!) all the while running around in circles! Any body who tried to catch him failed because he was more agile than a mountain monkey! One such time, I tried to grab hold of him, not knowing what is in store for me and what trick he had learnt recently! When I caught him by the scruff of his neck,he grabbed hold of my family jewels and refused to let go...I saw hell, turned blue, was speechless since I knew my mouth was moving but no words were coming out and saw white light!..Finally when he let go after a while thanks to some boys dragging him (and me along !) to release me ,I saw stars and fainted!!

The friends got me home and imagine my aunt asking me questions for which there were no answers from me...I was banished form playing outside for a month and i was more than thankful! It was my first realization that any disturbance to my family jewelery could cause so much pain (though I found out later that it was to the contrary !!)

This was during this time that I got a letter promising a free gift if I filled in a questionnaire.I was so excited by the prospect of filling in something that had the answers on it and having to send it to a postage paid address that it took up, the most part of my 12 th year! I lied to my unsuspecting aunt and mother that it was school work and filled out what seemed to be a history lesson and finally sent off the last of the mail that promised riches beyond my imagination and I was busily dreaming of a brand new cricket bat, a box full of 5star and riches like that when the gift arrived in the mail!.

I, in my immense wisdom, pride of having achieved something in life and glee in my eyes took it to my grandfather and proudly announced that I had won this from answering quizzes and my grandfather was watching me with suspicion while I tore open the package to see......THE BIBLE !! (I had been answering questions from the Bible with answers in the back oif the same letter!) My grandfather asked me everything patiently and proceed to thrash me to the last inch of my 12 year old life asking me if I wanted to convert to which I had no clue, never mind a reply!. After my aunt pacifying a sobbing me, my grandfather promised to teach me 'our roots'... Thus began my education in Ramayana, Mahabharata and Bhagavathgeetha!!.

Till this day I am thankful for filling in the questionnaire and understanding another religion and culture (maybe understanding is a stretch, 'exposed to' would be a better term!!) and to my grandfather for exposing me to my roots,faith and where I came from!! Because I still remember how I disliked my grandfather for banishing my exposure to other religions and still maintain that what we dont understand, we tend to be wary of , mistrust, misjudge and assume the worst and I didn't and don't ever want to be that!

Acceptance comes from understanding!! We are not given a chance by our upbringing to understand by exploring, which is the right of every growing up child!! We need to be exposed to everything and then make a choice...of religion, lifestyle choices and way of thinking...which in turn will determine our way of life!!................A path chosen by us with no one else to blame!!

P.S I Hate Love !!

Now, if at all something grabs anyone's attention quicker than greased lightning , they are the words love and sex!! Since I am done with sex with all of you (I meant as a topic in past blog....!, take your minds off the gutter,you one track minded folks!!), I am now tackling love!(not that its' anything new for me , but then I digress..again !) After the comments and encouraging responses, I owe it to myself to continue the never before heard levels of excellence in mediocrity and mundaneness of my blogging,, so off I go now!(whereto, I have no clue!!)

Coming back to love,(as we constantly and repeatedly do in our lives!) I hereby state the obvious..love is an illusion. I know, I know many of you are nodding your heads in disagreement, but hear me out first!. Love, I believe is a joke that our hormones play on us and the 'Valentine's Day' is a celebration of that joke!(ala April fools day!) Now I sound insanely close to being a pessimist, but I am stating something out of my experience and my neighbours' !. I have believed in forevers many times and have been rudely shaken out of my reverie when the other one says "We need to talk" !!.

Now guys, let me explain something to you...whenever your partner says that to you, trust me you are in deep shit!! Here are a few ways you can screwup...

1) You are constantly busy and you have no time for me

2) You are jobless and dont have drive or motivation..I cant respect a person like that

3) You are home all the time, and on my case! I need space!!

4) You dont want to go out with me as often as I would like

5) Every time i go out, you want to follow me..you dont trust me?

6) You dont make love to me often enough, are you getting it from somewhere else?

7) You want it constantly..you are an animal,,thats all you need me for!!

8)You make me feel like an idiot in public..I cant take your hogging of conversations!

9) I need a partner i can look up to..this dumb silence in public wont do!

10) I hate your job !

11) I hate my job!

12) I need romance in my life..you are not romantic at all!

13) I dont like PDA (public displays of affection)..stop being clingy!

So on and so forth! There are countless ways you can screw up and this goes for both sexes! (lest I be branded a woman hater!!)

The truth is guys, most relationships are over before your realise they are.The days of us watching our parents stick together because of social pressure, economic binding, children's well being,(In some case, genuine bonding) etc, etc are long gone..! They are replaced by economic independence and exposure to other cultures where being 'free' is fashionable and together does not necessarily translate to forever!! I have seen most of the permutations and combinations of relationships and their demises(of mine and others!!) So it is with the great wisdom of having brought couples together where some have stuck on , some have faded apart that i pen these words!.

Trust me when I tell you that I have no regrets and have the utmost respect for the women who have come into my life and though not near, have stayed in my mind forever cherished!.Some have educated me, some have made me a better human being, some have been my pillars of strength, some have been my babies, some have been my mother hens!I am what i am today because of them and I am proud of what I have been through and its all been good!

Love is a very powerful emotion that gives you a high like no other drug in this world. But love comes with many failings and many sacrifices (sometimes foolish ones!)..from both sides!.Some mistake lust for love, some mistake a crush for love, some mistake need for someone near for love, some even love for the convenience of being in love. The only love that I have come to understand that can stand the test of time and goes beyond the realm of selflessness and goes to the extent of sacrifice is the love a mother, a parent has for the children!. That is eternal and 'forever'(meaning till you last in this planet!).

Please do not mistake me as a non- believer of love and romance.I love being in love as much as any other guy!.Who in their right mind doesn't want togetherness, romance,passion,support and understanding??. What I come to say is that we might not get all from the same person, might not get all for a long time..(read that as, till you die!) It is not out there and if it is, it is rare!! So, forever is very very longass time to expect your partner to be turned on by your words, actions and a constantly aging body!! Ok, some might say, that is where fondness kicks in and that is enough for you to stay in the relationship... Right!, is that why there are so many cases of adultery all around us?..because you are fond of your partner, but get your desert from somewhere else (read that as sex!, for the delicate minded readers!!)

We are bombarded by ads like fast track where they promote changing your watches as often as you change partners (or is it the other way around?, I wonder!!). You really think it is not making all of us wonder if there is a forever, if there is a true love and if it will stay true and if we are really capable of being monogamous for the rest of our lives?? When i say monogamy, I include the mind too! Our minds also need stimulation and we might not get it constantly from our partners..do we let our minds stray?..watch out..the body follows the mind!! We need variety in bed too which after a few seasons with one person,after all the permutations and combinations of wrestling with each other(I word my words delicatelyhere!) , becomes predictable and ends up being a chore to the women and just a release for the men!!

I am not giving you a grim picture..I am playing the devil's advocate (and pleading his case,heheh!!) and telling you like it is and like what I have seen and felt! Maybe there are people living in ignorant bliss worshiping the ground each other walk on..but you know as well as me those cases are far and few nowadays!! Some wise man said..'marriage is an institution, but then, who wants to live in an institution??( as in mental institution, for the wordly pun- challenged!) All I am saying is,(looks like I have said too much and pissed off too many people already!!) enjoy it while it lasts..when the time comes, use the same dignity and class you have shown when getting into it , while getting out of it too!!. There is going to be a demise in the magic, there is going to be a falling out, but it doesn't have to be ugly! I always move on in my own merry way unmindful of how many people call me a 'loser" because i know...tomorrow is a brand new day!Lest i sound like a serial relationshipper (I dont even know if there is a term!?). I have been completely monogamous(one at a time I say!!) I have been at my best behavior and I have been blessed to still have them care for me!.

The point of this tirade (should there be a point ??) is to accept and embrace what God has given us and to some of us lucky ones, he gives many, unlike a couple that is in the throes of ignorant domestic bliss,caused by lack of imagination or opportunity!(this is certain to get me stoned!, with the rock variety, not the fumes variety!!) when I look at a happily married couple, I wonder which one is happy and which one is married!!

Lastly, I am what I am by design, not by choice...which is what most of you out there are and this blog is in celebration of people who have given their best and have been left out in the cold, ...confused, scared of the next step, wary of everyone new, not knowing whether to move ahead or retreat! Take heart, IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT!! Shit happens and it has happened to you too!! Every relationship comes with an 'expiry date'!!.

Accept, embrace and move on...someone who deserves you is out there!!

GOOD LUCK IN LOVE AND GOD BLESS THE NEXT ONE!!

(P.S..I hate love is titled thus because I have had to do it so many times and still haven't got it right!, so I will keep trying :p)

Back again ! Child Actor !!

I was at the ripe old age of 3 when i had my first acting experience! A friend of my dad came home and took one look at me and fell in love..(no not the child molestor kinda love!, but the kinda love that erupts for a producer when you see that you can get a cute child actor for free!).After much persuation, I was fully bathed, snot cleaned from my runny nose, powdered on my face beyond recognition(as was the style those days to make kids look presentable!), wore same cloth/design shirt and shorts(as was the style those days!) and packed off to the studios with my over bearing aunt(my dad's sister who happily fulfilled the void of not having a mother in law to my mom and terrorised everyone in the house!).My aunt was proud as a peacock about my acting job and off we went!.After many waiting hours and a few tantrums (not from me, from my aunt!) later, I was called and made to sit in between the late Gemini Ganesan and B.Sarojadevi for a song/scene, I dont remember, but the photo is still proudly displayed in kalahasthi at Bhavani press, which belongs to my grandfather.Dunno if it still exists, but the last i saw, the photo was still there!.My father then decided that I was going to be the last minute replacement for a child artiste who absconded and cast me as in "Yellelo naane' , a kannada film (superhero genre )directed by my dad which didnt run in theatres the time it was taken to be made!.
A few years later, another friend of my dad, producer Coganti kutumbarao (father of director K.Vasu), saw me at home making faces at the mirror and acting stupid( a trait at 6 that continues till date!) and decided I was going to be the child version of N.T.R. in his film Deeksha. My dad said no, my aunt said yes and that was the end of the arguement and no guesses as to who won!. So off I went to Bharani Studios (it belonged to the late Bhanumathi and sadly it doesnt exist today!). I was made to wear 2 inches of make up, red lipstick and rouge all over my cheeks making me unrecognisable to ...myself! After the make up man finished his handiwork and showed me the mirror, I shrieked, wailed, cried and wanrted to run away!. the make up man got offended that his artistry was not appreciated and told my aunt that it was a black and white film and that is the way it had to be and walked away! My aunt believed him and dragged my ass to the set and there I was at the ripe old age of 6, fully comprehending that there are about 80 odd pairs of eyes looking at me and expecting me to utter the lines, cry, run to my dead father played by some unknown actor and cradle his head in my lap! phew...I was a petrified dish!! I realised this was not a "smile and look here, i will give you choclate" excercise i had done earlier!.
This was serious stuff!! Surprisingly, I managed it after only a few rehearsals and I guess I was doing fine till the director decided to get creative!. He called me aside and said to me in his gentlest voice.." imagine that is your father, imagine the person next to you is your mother, crying for your dead father!" How will you feel? and then proudly looked at his assistant directors as if to say, thsi is how you draw performance from a novice!! They in turn looked at him in fake admiration(for fear of their jobs!). The smug director's face quickly changed, when the words he spoke to me hit my comprehension and I started a long wail followed by crying, rolling on the floor and sobbing my eyes off! No amount of cajoling and pleading worked on me and the director , clearly hurt that his plan backfired asked me to be taken to the make up room where I was supposed to be cooled off and my aunt, who didnt know what happened and when I told her that Director uncle told me that my dad is dead, she took off on the assistant directors and they didnt dare say a word coz she literally chewed their heads off and took me home! I cried all the way to home and only on seeing my mother did I stop and a bribe of few ice creams later, drifted off to sleep!.
A few phone calls, apologies and bonding of the friends , all was resolved and oof i went to the studio...again!! this time, there were no real life examples and i guess i did my job well enough to be flooded with offers! This time, my father decided he was going to stop this nonsense , lest it would affect my studies( like i was an ace student!! moi was struggling in school from day one! ) and told my aunt some story about how all child artistes grow up to be short and the lights affecting their growth! my aunt believed it and my acting career that began at 3 ended at the age of 6, just when i was beginning to understand the nuances and thrill of it! Actually, I kinda liked the pampering of the film people,the sets, the lights, the adrenalin rush of a take and the focus of everyone on the set on that singular moment.....!
Thanks to my dad,I was put firmly back to reality,(maybe he sensed the comfort with which i started leaving home to the studio!!) He packed me off into the world of school, studying and books that made no sense to me!!
So I merrily continued my excellence in substandardness of acedemics!!

Let's talk about SEX baby !!

Deep within the bowels of my ...mind (lest you guys assume i am going somewhere else!) there are a million thoughts!..about nothing and everything!. lemme start with my favourite topic..sex!.(Ok, now there are many antennas going up, I know!! Is he going to offend me by writing blasphemy? Is he crossing the line? Is he going to keep this blog clean or is he going to fall by the gutter?) Chill people..read on and decide! I am writing this after much confusion and clarity of chaotic thinking!
Woody allen said...sex is beautiful between two good looking people!, the trick is finding the right 2 goodlooking people and fitting in !!
Sex is dirty....if it is done right!!.. we spend so many years of our lives thinking about it ( all the hours of the days added together) wondering(for the uninititated!), pondering ( for the worriers of their performance earlier!), fantasising( for the newcomers!,pun intended), dreaming(for the love struck!), anticipating(for the starved kinds!),worrying( for the fat, over the hill kinds!),
dreading (for the many years married and/or the younger partner kinds!) readying ( for the viagra kinds;)) anticipating (for all!) ...we all spend time on it..but no, we dont wanna talk about it because it is taboo!..puhleeaase,..let's be grown up about it for a change. it is there, it exists , we all do it, we all did it and we are gonna do it till we die if we can help it!
I am so happy to see the days gone where women pretended to do men a favour by going to bed with a man! women pretended to do it because they are supposed to sacrifice for their man! women were told not to as much as squeal/let out a squeak.. when in bed with their man! Mothers told daughters to ration it lest the husband took it for granted! I am so glad to see the revolution come by and women come to terms with their individuality, their independence, their feminism, their wants and desires and not be afraid to voice them out and take what they need... from life and from the bedroom!. (here's to celebrating them and their freedom!) Sex is nothing but an expression of love !!
There are many men who still question women's virginity, look at their desires with suspect, question their experiences, judge their normal needs, balk at their desires and verify and compare their performance/ manliness caused by deep rooted insecurities!.
Well they are a dying breed that is still alive and thriving in this civilization! I really hope and pray for their extinction..or at least for that mindset! Dont get me wrong here..i am not condoning or talking about premarital sex ( and getting myself into shit load of trouble!) I am talking about a woman, today's woman...whether she is from the village or city, she has the right to have a healthy sex life and be happy with her partner who she chooses/chosen for her !
I was doing a lot of frantic pondering while i was doing my hurried yoga and then clarity collided with my confusion and created chaos in my already housefull pea brain! So decided to talk about sex and how normal it is for everyone and everybody! Vola.. no more taboo, no more whispering about it, no more unrequitted passion! We are all human beings and we all deserve happiness!
There are men who havent heard of the female orgasm and see her as a child bearing vessel! Trust me, I hear men talking and I hear women talking too!! MEN, get a life!! they have far outrun us in the thinking department, looks department(needless to say i guess!) achievements department (look at our president and the real president of the congress!!) look at our +2 results!! they have out run us, out gunned us, even out manned us!!
I guess any clever man would now say..ma'm what would be your wish? I will follow, you lead !! I am not deriding men, just asking them to relinquish the archaic dominance we have held for all these years and learn to treat the fairer sex as the stronger sex and the logical thinking and multitasking (which we cant do to save our manhood even !!) race of humanity! Respect them as we did our mothers, but let us not mistake them for our subserviant mothers!, A mistake I see a lot of men do and expect to dominate them like our fathers did our mothers (our mothers didnt have options,..due to lack of education, lack of support from their own parents, lack of finances, lack of role models!)..! A timewarp mistake that has caused many a divorces in our/this time !!
Respect the woman, respect her needs, respect her wants, respect her mind, respect her heart, respect the fact that she goes through hell, to give you children with your name... and you will have peace !! Forgetting which, men. you will be faced with ' hell hath no fury than a woman scorned'
I have been borne by a blessed woman, a blessed woman bore my child!
I have slept with women and not had sex!
I have had sex with women and didnt want to sleep with them !
I have loved some women but didnt lust after them!
I have lusted some women but didnt feel love !
I couldnt afford some women, but some offered to buy me(which i refused, of course!)
I have wanted some women for life, but life didnt let me keep them with me for life!
I have been wanted by some, but i didnt want to be kept !!
I have loved and lost! ..only to realise, that I have always been loved by the ones I have lost !!
SEX,. my friends, is not between two legs, it's between two ears !!
Hope i have not offended anyone and if I have, thats a bonus !!

back to FLASHBACK !

My growing up years have been pretty traumatic and nerve wracking for me and to onlookers, pretty tame and ...lame !! As soon as I was put in school, seeing the sea of humanity was overwhelming for me and very very early on, i realized i was no Einstein !! I could have been blamed for many things, but being smart or intelligent wasn't one of them in school! I wasn't clever enough to sit in the front row and wasn't rebellious or daring enough to be allowed to sit in the back row with the adventurous boys who everyone admired for their being pulled up, scolded ,caned or dismissed to the principal's office !I started in 'OXFORD ENGLISH SCHOOL', a private school where everyone spoke Tamil (what an oxymoron for such a posh sounding school name!) I quickly became the butt of ragging and jokes by the tall boys and the fat boys who loved calling me 'vella kakka' (white crow) because I was fair skinned and I have never hated my skin as much as I did in school ! It was an all boys school and I was spared the embarrassment of being me ,probably because I blended in! ( I was awkwardly thin with a gangly walk and a chicken chest with narrow shoulders which my friends constantly reminded me of ...and my self esteem was uncomfortably below sea level !!)

Somehow i managed to pass (excel, in my book!!) by keeping my marks at a 40 + level and the only thing I did well was in English, thanks to my voracious reading! I read everything, from newspapers to comics to weeklies to novels to ....porn ! (that came later, but we will get there eventually !!) I used to read so much because i was bored out of my skull, being a lonely child! I had nowhere to go, wasn't allowed to go anywhere by my overbearing aunt and a scared mother who thought i was too good for the neighborhood boys who constantly bullied me! In the mean while my dad quit Devar films because he decided having 14 fractures in 6 years while acting with animals that threw you (elephants) mauled you( tigers) and scratched you (monkeys) and bit you (dogs!) was enough! He decided to go to Bangalore to become a director! btw he started as a camera assistant, assistant director, editing assistant, dubbing artiste, actor and then became a director and then promoted himself to a producer, where he lost all his money and some of my money which i would earn in the future, but we will come to that later!!

Before he left to stay in Bangalore for a few years, he decided to test my educational skills and took out my school bag and started asking me questions from my school books which i had kept for purely ornamental purposes and not to do mundane things like studying!.Needless to say, he was appalled, frustrated and angry with my stupidity and promptly proceeded to arm himself with a coat hanger (wooden, thank God!) and thrashed the living daylights out of me, with my aunt trying to wedge herself in between us and my mom keeping a respectable distance from the proceedings!! I was extremely relieved he was going to Bangalore and decided that very day i was going to be smarter...at not getting caught!, not studying or education !!

With my father safely and temporarily out of the picture, I continued my excellence in academics getting average to passable to 'almost pass' and 'barely pass' marks in all subjects..! My bench mates in Oxford English School were 'Puttanna' and 'venkat', now known as "ShivrajKumar' and ' kadalora kavithaigal Raja" ! I didnt think much of them and they returned the favor by thinking I was a complete loser!.We kinda bonded because of our below average scores in all subjects!. Ten odd years later we met each other...at the film fare awards where I received the best new comer award in Telugu, Shivraj kumar received the best new comer award in Kannada and Raja received the best newcomer award in Tamil ! We bonded again and were surprised to realize all us ' losers' (who have been written off by all the teachers barring none )had made something of our lives and it was a tearful and joyous moment in my life to see my school mates up there receiving awards and I was proud to be there with them !!

Life was going well (by that I mean being invisible, obscure and under the radar of teachers who completely underestimated me and rightly so !! )for this awkward 'almost' teenager when my parents had a brilliant idea of putting me in the next compound... Shrine Velankani School, a co-education school and my real troubles began ! My pathetic exposure to girls (no, i didn't expose myself to them like in my childhood, but showing my face to girls was enough to make me cringe then for this totally self conscious geeky pubescent boy!!)

All that and more in the next installment !!

Today!!

I have always been a firm believer in today, as in this moment..Why, because nobody gives a rat's ass what you did yesterday and nobody will know wtf you are gonna do tomorrow!! This moment, today what you do, how you behave, how you respond to people is what matters! AHAM BRAHMASMI!! There are many old timers who make youngsters scamper, scoot,run for their dear lives the minute they open their mouths!! The reason is not bad breath, though that is also my suspicion.. it largely because the old timers start their every conversation with..'in our days", things were so beautiful, 'in our days' things were more disciplined, 'in our days' people treated people better and with respect!!....

If you ask me, i will tell you its all a bunch of crap! ( i will tell you even if you dont ask me also!! :))we all know in the olden days things were not so streamlined nor disciplined, we all know there was zamindari attitude to lower class people..(no one can afford to say the things old timers said to workers and such these days) and those days beauty is very relative to the beholder's eyes..my biggest fear is becoming one of the old timers who thinks the past was beautiful!, only because he was important then and not now!!. I get my sense of importance from my work and not from how people respond to me!

This happens largely to people who have not yet come to terms with loss of 'star status' or have stopped being a Demi-God! (trust me, its all in their heads! these days people are not remembered a few days after they are gone, so thinking 'the sun wont come up without me, moon will not shine without me' bullshit is a very bad defense mechanism of a retarded human being whose insecurities stemming from a far inferior complex that makes them hide behind self importance and denial thereby making their empty lives livable!).These are people who take themselves seriously and not their work! their work doesn't define them, they, their market and their 'glamour' does! This goes for actors, CEO's, politicians and 'desperate for publicity and fame' industrialists!!

I tell my actor friends to travel,. see the world, not so that they get to travel or holiday but to understand how frickin little we are in the wide expanse of this earth and how many, many many people have achieved success, greatness.nobility,immortality, Godliness (is there such a word? I wonder?!) by their work, hard work that has come from discipline, toil and sacrifice! We are in a position where people love us, admire and adore us...let us be nice to people who want to greet, meet and talk to us!. Let us not be snobbish, let us not think the sun shines out of our ass, let us not assume our shit dont stink! is what i politely tell my actor friends!!. Some take it in the right spirit, some dont..its ok! I am not here to change anybody by advise or lecture! I try saying everything with a pinch of humour and trust me, even i have been told off or insulted when i tell facts to my heroic bretheren, by the heroic bretheren!

What is the point of this rambling? (actually, i am beginning to wonder..i have the attention span of a firefly, i meander, wander, go off tangent so much so that i wonder where and who I am?!) I guess the point is that we should never take for granted the gifts that we have been given...trust me,. all of us are given gifts, we haven't learnt to count our blessings yet!. When we do, we will understand its not so bad!! We will also understand that we are part of a process, system,life force, energy of life mass making this Earth what it is! ( actually, we are depleting earth's resources and making it an empty dustbin, but thats another day, another blog!..trust me to wander off..) We are a part of a big picture and we are not alone, we are not special and least of all, we really dont matter that much in the bigger scheme of things!! Greater men have bode farewell to this earth and the earth has not stopped rotating on its axis!

My dad, a very old school man from films used to be careful about everything ( only for things i did, he must have had a ball in his heydays, i am sure!!)

He used to keep saying, you are a 'public figure' be careful what you do and say in public!, you are a'public figure' careful to keep your inaccessible fortitude!, was his constant advise to me! All this was at my ripe old age of 18!!. It kinda got to me after a while and i was telling a friend ' screw this 'PUBIC' figure bullshit man, cant take this anymore!!. My dad heard this and unleashed hell on me and told me off in all the four south Indian languages he knew well and added Hindi and English scoldings and abuses which he didn't know so well!! All this in the guise of me not talking advise in the right spirit and that stardom got to my head!, was his ranting.He accused me of coming home at 6.45 when the shoot got over at 5.30 when it was half an hour's drive only to get home! I was dumbstruck and didn't understand why i was being treated like a girl/object/pocession (you take your pick!) I came to know later that he was being overly protective so that i didn't marry any actress and run away from home!!. He needn't have bothered, because that was what exactly i did!! Well done with the discipline dad!!

There is a lot of murder that happens to the English language on a regular basis in my industry! Here are some snippets or nuggets (depends on how much you enjoy them)

SELF MURDER ...to denote suicide!

PETROTHAAL...to denote betrothal!

COME CASUALTY..to denote come casually!

VAKINI ...vauhini studios

TUPPING...dubbing!

SOOS...juice!

YACT...act!

will provide more soon!!