Oh leader where art thou?

December 25. We have always held this day as pretty important. Yes, Jesus Christ was born this day. But for us, there was a different reason. There was one person who has been one of our role models. A great statesman who, as far as we are concerned, was the greatest PM India has ever had. 1924 December 25. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was born. We have been a huge fan ever since we started following politics. Sure India had lot of leaders with big following. But no one had that charisma, that charm or the oration skills like Atalji. He, for us, was the ideal politician. He did not have any equals. The direction Indian politics is taking, we are not sure if he ever will.

We were not there when he started his life as a politician. We were yet to be born when he made that speech in UN. We hardly could understand what is happening when Babri happened. But we were able to understand things when he became PM and the opposition brought him down only after 13 days. We, although were only 12 at that time, were very upset. Why would opposition want to bring down such a good man we thought. (We were wrong. He was not a good man. He was a great man. ) But they did succeed and behold, we had Mr. Devegowda as PM. Yes. The same politicians who did not want someone like Atalji as PM, voted for HDD. That’s politics for you. As expected, this did not last long.

Atalji did not get outright majority during next election. But he did become PM. For 13 months. As usual, nobody wants a decent man to be at the helm. Opposition brought him down again. This was the time when madam was starting to come out as a ’politician’. An effort which is still ongoing. And will go on till she retires. She is still pretty far away from the “good politician” she thinks she is. Anyway, these were eventful 13 months. This was the period of nuclear tests and Kargil. We were thrilled when we heard that we were nuclear powered nation. We had read so much about only strongest nations having this etc etc. Sure there were scientists who worked on it. But for us, it was Atalji who made it possible.

There were economic sanctions and the country did not suffer a bit. AN able leader was there to take care of the country. But there was one glitch. Lahore bus service. We deem that as the one of the two black spots in his tenure. Vying for peace is a great gesture. But somehow it did not work out. The enemy soldiers were found to have come inside our country and occupied some border posts. Operation Vijay started and ended with heavy losses to the infiltrates. But the biggest threat to the Government was Amma. She did not get the attention she was craving for and started throwing tantrums. She eventually withdrew support and elections loomed again.  

This time Indian people understood better. People voted for Atalji rather than the local contestant. There was a clear majority for Atalji led coalition and it lasted five full years. Only non-Congress Govt to do so. This was the period when we had the Flight 814 hijack. The second black spot. The External affairs minister went till the hijacked plane to escort the terrorists. Even with RSS and VHP pressing him to follow a religion based agenda, he did his best not to cave in. We did have lot of development programs and economic reforms. When the term ended, we expected Atalji to be PM again.

But sadly, people wanted to talk about ideologies and religion more than basic needs and reforms. Nobody saw the shining India. The India shining advertisement bombed big time. Madam became the puppet-master (puppet-mistress? Doesn’t sound right…) again. The party apparently blamed Atalji for the debacle as he preferred bread and butter over religion. He resigned as the leader and Mr. Advani took over. He declared in December 2005 that he will retire from politics after the term. We will stop the history lesson here. Looks like the Indian politics has never recovered from it and continues to reach new nadir everytime we think “This is it. They cannot better it”.

Atalji led the country to best of his ability. And amidst the busy life he still found time to right amazing poems. He never let the poet inside him go away. That is something we respect a lot. Lot of people comment about his drinking or his pro-Hindutva attitude. Such people never bother to look at the reforms by him as a PM or poems by him as a poet or speeches by him as an orator. Nobody is perfect. Atalji was/is not perfect. We agree. But when someone says the country is in trouble or country is going to dogs, there is only one person we would look up to. Given the scenario and politicians we have, one person can guide us. That is him. Whatever issues you want to see in him as a person, we do not care. The country misses him and needs him. It well and truly does.

PS: We normally don’t plug videos and songs in our blogs. And we are not a huge fan of channels like India TV/Aaj Tak etc. But we just could not resist this. This is a 30 min show by Live India about Atalji.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE5S2ZiEJ9k&feature=related

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

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

A dirty picture and a neat match..

Ever seen a fat lady wearing a tank top and still considered sexy in a movie? Welcome to the world of south Indian cinema. We just saw a movie called “The Dirty Picture” and we were disappointed with it. No not because of plump Vidya Balan wearing such clothes. It was a disappointing movie. Our lady wanted to watch the movie. We were not much interested in watching this. Tusshar Kapoor and Emraan Hashmi in a same movie? That’s like having Akshay Kumar and Suniel Shetty in a same movie.. Eesh.. Oh Wait.. That has happened twice already…

The movie is about rise of a village girl to stardom, her struggles in the industry and then personal relationships and how her arrogance leads her to her downfall and finally death. But sadly this does not cover anything in details. It covers all but the film still lacks something that can hold you on to it. To quote Silk ‘ Touch karta hai magar choo tha nahi.” This movie should have been a great biography because Silk’s life was pretty interesting. But instead it just ends up as a skin show by Vidya Balan. 

We do not want to take anything away from Vidya Balan. She has done a pretty significant job. We were really impressed by her acting. But somebody should have told her that being bold and taking risk does not mean skin show. There is something missing which separates this being remembered as a class apart role. We feel so much of skin show was unnecessary. We are not saying we did not like it (Oh yes we did J). Coming to another heroine of the movie, Tusshar Kapoor. We feel Ekat Kapoor gave that role only because family ties. We actually thought Tusshar would be playing Silk. Vidya Balan has pulled it off pretty well we guess.

Naseeruddin Shah is excellent as usual. As typical south Indian hero, he is wonderful. Emraan Hashmi is surprisingly adequate for the role. In fact, those moments in the movie where Abraham (Haashmi) and Silk, are the best moments of the movie. The romantic undertones are heartening to watch. We liked the chemistry between the two. And one thing not to miss is the song Ooh La La. This is like OST of the movie and Bappi da is a delight. It gives you the 80’s feel. We actually think that is the catchy song of this year. Not Kolaveri.

In other news, as we have told you earlier we are a huge FC Barcelona fan, we watched El Clasico live after a long time. And as expected we won. 3-1. It would have been a close one if Christiano Ronaldo had not missed two of the easiest chances. For someone who earns so many millions, he should have scored. We were very happy that he missed. (P.S : We hate him. A lot.) When Barca conceded a goal inside a minute, we were so shocked. That stupid pass was not expected from a keeper like Valdes. But anyway. We won and that’s what matters.

Crazy man, crazy idea and a crazily popular song

OK.. we are reaching uncharted territory here.. This is the first time ever that our blog will deal with the topic crazy and will not have anything referred to Diggy Raja. We cannot fathom this. What is this blog coming to?

First thing, being a avid social network person, we will cover/talk about Kapil Sibal. The man comes up with some crazy ideas. He came with one couple of days back. He wants to screen the user contents posted in social network sites. Yes, democracy and free speech.. You can go f*** yourselves.  We want to post this before Kapil Sibal reads this and attacks our house. During his display of blatant sycophancy to madam, showed the real reason why he was upset. Somebody had mad fun of madam. How can someone stand it? Someone like Madam being made fun of. Come on now. Such people should be shot.. So he wants to ban everything and everyone that makes fun of the Government. Sure, the performance has been poor. Sure, there have been more scandals than money in Reddys' account. But that does not mean you make fun.  

We thought we already had a law where people will be tried if they post/spread anything that hurts religious sentiments and/or is obscene. Wasn’t that enough? Why would you want to stop people from expressing their feelings? There will be some people who behave like black sheep of the family. But they can be tried with the existing laws we have. Why would you act like an idiot and do what Kapil Sibal just did? To gain madam’s favour? Isn’t that pathetic? But looks like that’s how Madamji and baba want. Lick the boots and climb the ladder. Sheesh. They have a topic trending in twitter. #idiotkapilsibal. We request you to trend it even more. Thanks.

Now we will come to another sycophant. Another crazy person. Well Crazy is an understatement. We will just give you two words. No not Diggy Raja. This time it is, Janardhana Poojary.  If you know all the hoopla around Kukke Subramanya and made snana, you will love to hear what he said about it. Look, personally we are not a big fan of rolling on plantain leaves which have remains of somebody else’s meal. But if people feel good by thinking that it might help them with their luck, fortune, go ahead. Roll all you want. Its your choice. Nobody is forcing it on you. Why make a big fuss if its one’s own choice? We do not get it. To top it, in a move to make people stop, Mr Poojary went ahead and showed a gallant middle finger to Science and medicine. He declared “you can get AIDS because of made snana ”. We end the topic here. We are afraid we might wet ourselves by laughing hard.

Now coming to the third crazy. The song. Why this Kolaveri di? We liked this song when it started making the rounds. Then it became tad irritating with the repeats and retweets  around. Then different versions started making the rounds. Now even some kid has sung it. We don’t like the way people try to cash in. Sure the original version was catchy. But that is enough. We cannot stand it anymore. It is like that annoying song by James Blunt again. Good song ruined by too much publicity.

And here is the sad story of the week. Saddest story from the day we started this blog. The evergreen hero of Bollywood, someone who we thought will forever be there and be young, passed away. Dev Anand is no more. The word evergreen can now be retired with Shammi Kapoor and Dev sahib gone. He was a huge part of our hostel life. We always heard so many songs and hummed so many of them along witwe felt he was a part of us. But look how lucky Rafi is. When Shammi ji passed away, people were listening to Rafi. Now when Dev Sahib are no more, people are listening to Rafi again.

This year seem to be horrible for good celebrities. Shammi Kapoor, Bhimsen Joshi, Jagjit Singh, Bhupen Hazarika and now Dev Anand. Its like God has forgotten that we have many politicians around. Come on big guy… Takes some for the nation. It will do us a world of good.