I’m presenting my version of “Distorted Definitions” which you’ll not find in conventional Dictionaries. These new definitions are the result of my unique brand of humour :) Movie buffs : I’d rather call these people “Forced Movie buffs”; means, since they have nothing else to do in their free time, they keep watching movies. It’s so easy! Just buy tickets, and sit in comfort for 2 hours. No effort and no creativity required. 90% of the movie buffs fall in this category except for the people actually involved in the movie business and the professional movie reviewers. I don’t consider movie watching as a “hobby”. Hobby is an activity which teaches you something creative or valuable. For example, singing, dancing or even exercising. Movie watching is merely a pass time activity. Women’s Magazines : Magazines with plentiful ads, in which, rich and anorexic women pose to sell international brands of lingerie, perfumes, and designer clothes. Editors of such magazines are under the assumption that apart from “What to eat”, “How to dress” and, “How to have sex”, women have no other business.
Movie Stars : People who manage to look beautiful with the help of cosmetic surgeries and heavy make-up; having inflated egos and excessive money; and have right “contacts”.
Non Resident Indian (NRI): A financially and morally poor person who has embraced “Dollar” or “Pound” as God and hates everything “Indian” including himself/herself. Generally, suffers from an identity crisis and inferiority complex. Cannot be and should not be trusted.
Socialite : An excessively rich person who has accidentally got plenty of money through inheritance, family connections or marriage. Generally found dumb and pompous.
Job Interview : Meeting where your lying abilities are tested.
Management Graduate (MBA) : A self-proclaimed over achiever, having unreasonably high opinion of himself/herself and yet, having expertise in no particular area. Basically; no substance, all pretense.
Spouse : A trophy used for displaying in Facebook profile pictures.
Facebook Profile : A display of your life which you wish was true but is actually a desperate cover up for your sad existence!
And last but but not the least;
Pregnancy : A social stamp of potency of the involved man.
Being a Nobody is highly common, but yet, extremely unpopular in this country. Nobody is a person who does not have fame, excessive money, excessive success; means does not have a name for himself/herself. A popular term for such person is “Aam Aadmi”. In a democracy, majoritarianism calls shots but even in a democratic country, being a part of “majority” does not necessarily means holding power. In fact, it’s the opposite. Majority and minority are tools, often termed as Vote Banks which come in picture only during elections.
So, how is it to be the opposite of Nobody? Being an opposite of Nobody means either you are a powerful person or related to one. In this scenario, your life will be smooth. You’ll have less struggles, and your path will be pretty much set. You’ll get what you want with relative ease. You’ll be judged less harshly and you’ll have more options in life. You’ll be admitted in elite schools and colleges, either in India or abroad where you’ll be polished. After you finish your “education”, you’ll get plenty of time to “figure out” what you want in life. Of course, in this break, you can have lots of overseas vacations to introspect. Once you decide what you want, you’ll ultimately join your powerful family profession. Your family goodwill will help you immensely and success for you will be just a matter of time.
The same pattern will work in your personal life as well. Members of the opposite sex will be eager to date/marry you and judging you as a human will be a non-requirement for them. Just your “name” will be enough to attract mates as well as friends. People will pretty much be oblivious to your real personality because that’s dispensable. However glaring vices you might have, it could be drug addiction, alcoholism, various other addictions and personality issues; you’ll still be regarded as a “good person”.
Now come to the other side of fence.
You are a Nobody in this country so you’ll have to be a fighter in a literal sense. You’ll struggle all your life so you’ll need to get tough. You’ll need to get street smart, argumentative, manipulative to get your work done. Right from school donations, to the prestigious colleges, you’ll have to compete with lakhs of others just to get an admission. Even after the admissions, life will not be simple. You’ll need to keep performing, keep getting high grades to prove yourself. You’ll keep working hard to graduate with high grades. When you do graduate, the bigger struggle starts. You’ll feel that a post graduation will increase your chances to stand out and so you impart your struggle for couple of more years. After post-graduation, you’ll realize that jobs are still difficult as there are lakhs of post graduates as well! You’ll get the job somehow with a descent salary. But wait, it’s not the happy ending. The bigger struggle will wait for you at office. You’ll have to constantly perform and compete at work; else your job will be in danger!
Your personal life will be in a mess most of the time. If you are single, you’ll have to face overly judgmental potential mates who’ll find everything about you wrong. Attracting and retaining mates will be harder. If you are married, your married life will be in a mess due to professional and social pressures. You’ll not be able to run away because of the ghostly scary EMIs. You’ll eventually turn religious and start making donations to religious establishments in a hope that the amount will be returned in your next pay hike! God will be your only saviour :)
SRK – I had originally thought about writing a review on his last movie Ra.one but later, decided to write a review i.e. express my personal views about the man himself as well.
Whenever a movie starring Shahrukh Khan releases, the entire nation takes notice either by admiring it or criticizing it. Whether you love Shahrukh Khan or hate him, I’m sure you cannot ignore him because he is everywhere! On Talk shows, Radio, Media Event, Internet, Television…This man was omnipresent before the release of Ra.one. He promotes his all movies with the same enthusiasm but this time the financial investments were much higher. After all, it takes momentous efforts to make the Most Expensive movie of Bollywood!
Ultimately, Ra.one did recover its costs and managed to be a HIT; it had to be. Everyone who invested in the movie knew they cannot lose money when this man is involved because movie profit is not just about box office success these days. It’s a huge business deal involving overseas rights, music rights and various other rights. So when you have as “reliable brand” as Shahrukh Khan, generating a few hundred crores of investment is not difficult at all.
So! After investing hundreds of crores of rupees for his over ambitious project, what did he finally deliver to the audiences? A Sham. Yes, it was. The basic purpose of movie making is just one: Story Telling. But here, the purpose was ONLY to show off the stardom of SRK. It was all about him. So much, that other acclaimed senior actors (like Rajnijant, Sanjay Dutt, Priyanka Chopra) did pretty crap scenes which they otherwise would not have done for anyone.
What gives this guy so much power that he can deceive the nation of one billion people into believing a sham, an entertaining movie and also earn praise and awards (in future)? It’s his “Star Power”. India is a country obsessed with Stars; mainly movie stars and cricket stars. Once someone achieves much coveted “stardom”, they pretty much achieve status of God who cannot do anything wrong. There are other such Stars such as Salman Khan, Amitabh Bacchan who have achieved Godlike status but I bet; even they don’t manipulate the audiences as much as this guy does.
I can figure out few reasons why this guy achieved so much stardom despite his looks and questionable acting abilities.
-Fanatical Passion: This guy puts tremendous amount of passion in almost all his projects. If you watch his old movies when he was not a star, you will surely notice his passion. There are very few people who can put this much of dedication to their chosen area of work.
-The “click” factor: Yes, he “clicked” with the audiences. There are no rules in show business and if you click with people, they’ll accept you.
-Smart Connections: Shahrukh scored in this area like no one has ever succeeded. In the beginning phase of his career, he enticed the Yash Raj productions. Then he took the help of Karan Johar and now, makes movies for himself! He has maintained an excellent rapport with the right people so that he can get the right rewards such as Filmfare awards. :)
Now comes the negative aspects of this man.
-Tendency to manipulate audiences and media: This has become his habit and it may work for him for few more years but if continued, it will result in the loss of goodwill for him.
-Reluctance of trying new roles: This guy plays pretty much same characters, which are of a “Hero”. He wants all the focus just on himself and nothing else, not even movie scripts. I’m sure he’ll never be interested in doing movies like “Taare Zameen Par” where script is the real Hero.
-Self Obsession: This has made him a Deceptive Ego Maniac which is disastrous for his own creativity. This guy needs to think beyond his stardom and at least attempt to make a genuine creative contribution.
Let’s hope that this guy starts focusing on creativity rather than the extravagant business equations.
