65. Women

A stand-up bit done by Jerry. Hilarious to say the least.

JERRY(at the night-club) :  I swear, I have absolutely no idea what women are thinking. I don't get it, OK? I, I, I admit, I, I'm not getting the signals. I am not getting it! Women, they're so subtle, their little...everything they do is subtle...men are not subtle, we are obvious. Women know what men want, men know what men want, what do we want? We want women, that's it!...It's the only thing we know for sure, it really is: we want women. How do we get them? Oh, we don't know 'bout that, we don't know. The next step after that we have no idea. This is why you see men honking car-horns, yelling from construction sites. These are the best ideas we've had so far.

The car-horn-honk, is that a beauty? Have you seen men doing this? What is this? The man is in the car, the woman walks by the front of the car, he honks: [imitates horn] e-eeehh, eehhh, eehhh, this man is out of ideas. How does it...? [imitates horn again] e-e-e-eeeehhhh, "I don't think she likes me"

The amazing thing is, that we still get women, don't we. Men, I mean, men are with women. You see men with women. How are men getting women, many people wonder. Let me tell you a little bit about our organization. "Where ever women are?", we have a man working on the situation right now. Now, he may not be our best man, OK, we have a lot of areas to cover, but someone from our staff is on the scene...That's why, I think, men get frustrated, when we see women reading articles, like: "Where to meet men?". We're here, we are everywhere. We're honking our horns to serve you better.

64. Investment

This is something Jerry Seinfeld said in 1990, which in the wake of this liquidity crisis seems so true and common-sensical. 

JERRY: I'm not an investor. People always tell me, you should have your money working for you. I've decided I'll do the work. I'm gonna let the money relax. You know what I mean? 'Cause you send your money out there - working for you - a lot of times, it gets fired. You go back there, "What happened? I had my money. It was here, it was working for me." "Yeah, I remember your money. Showing up late. Taking time off. We had to let him go."

63. The un-said

What's left unsaid stays in the mind and haunts us from time to time. And as more and more things are left unsaid, the clutter builds up, increasing the levels of mental unrest.

This gyaan from a movie called 'Little Manhattan', a really cute little story about a 10-year old new yorker's first love.

Come to think of it, there is always a lot that's left unsaid. Unless everything goes right, we do tend to not say the intended, as it is bound to sound out of place. Sometimes, the unsaid gets said, under unforseen circumstances. Lets look at some ways in which the unsaid somehow gets said (atleast in the movies).

Alcohol
The reason why alcohol probably is a major success world-over, is coz it helps you to get over your inhibitions and say the unsaid. Most daring of confessions happen after a few large pegs of whisky sink in.

Time
Time kills, Time heals, Time keeps ticking away. Lack of time puts one in a position to reveal or say something that could have waited for a wee bit longer otherwise. Time is a tricky thing, people make promises without taking into account, it's unpredictable nature. When the girl is gonna be gone for a while, the guy gets very limited time, so he feels that he needs to change to the 'fast-forward' mode so as to take the relationship to the next stage.

Family
The most influential social group, these people can at times also be the ones who push you to your limits, which makes you say things which you'd always wanted to but never intended to.

Messengers/Letters
What cant be said is sometimes written or typed. Letters are a much safer option, since its one-sided. Saying the unsaid on the messengers can create quite a weird situation. Suppose the unsaid is said, then there'll be some discussion on the topic. One person may be more eager than the other for an answer, building up anxiety and frustration. Typing speeds are never good when complicated issues are handled. So the sender takes his/her own sweet time thinking of the right words while the reciever waits at the other end staring at the 'sender123 is typing...' message on top of the sender's chat window. What messes up the situation further is if one of the two get disconnected due to a network failure or a power failure, which in our country is a daily occurence.

Ok, so much for the reasons. Why do we have things left unsaid ? The right place and the right time always elude the right dialogue. We later ponder over the timing and the content of the dialogue that had to be delivered. We evaluate the merit of not having said a thing with the consequences if we had said it. Psychologists make a living out of hearing the unsaid. What we cant tell to the rest of the world, we tell to our shrink.  The shrink is a 'you' outside yourself. They wont tell you what's right or wrong, rather, they'll help you weigh your options and take better decisions. If the mind is stable enough, one can assume the shrink's role oneself, cant one ?

Ok, this one's gone haywire, lets just leave the rest of the clutter in my mind for the time being. Some things have to be unsaid right :)

This article is put up on  - www.themag.in

62. Slumdog Millionaire

The movie starts off with Jamal(Dev Patel, our slumdog err protagonist) being tortured in a jail cell. The belief is that this young chai-wallah cheats on 'Who wants to be a Millionaire'(hosted by Anil Kapoor) and answers all the quesitons right, which makes him a slumdog millionaire overnight. The lives and hardships in the slums of Bombay have been captured in some great sequences, as we run through Jamal's childhood in the flashback (for those of you who dint know this, Dharavi is Asia's biggest slum). How Jamal gets to know of the answers for the questions is cleverly intertwined while describing his past. He gets on the show not to win the millions, but to get a chance to be seen by his long-lost childhood love Lathika(played by Freida Pinto).

The child protagonists (Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and Ayush Mahesh Khedekar) are splendidly natural, the first quarter of the movie is by-far the most gripping. The movie has those distinct 'Danny Boyle trademark' moments and they hit the bullseye each time. The plot does have some holes, and gets a bit too Bollywoodish at times. The ten year olds start speaking about destiny, join mob gangs rather effortlessly and also manage to find and pull Lathika(Freida) out of the red-light area with great ease. Anil Kapoor does a great job playing the smug show host. He brings with him an air of sophistication, pomp and snobbery to the show.

The mellifluous background scores splendidly blend in with the screenplay, cant believe that Subhash Ghai rejected the 'O Sara' OST for his Yuvraj(I can spell it only this way, am sorry, i dont type extra unnecessary alphabets). The Danny Boyle - John Hodge pair would have handled this subject better and made it more impactful than it already is. Its high time they re-join as a team and bring to us another marvel like 'The Beach'. Trainspotting still is Danny Boyle's best movie till date. Slumdog comes a close third, after "The Beach'. 

This article is put up on  - www.themag.in